


no matter how bright a torch may burn

by thegirl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Body Swap, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Because that tag needs to be used a hell of a lot more, Cersei is not actually in this story, F/M, For Want of a Nail, Gen, Just to warn you: it is Sansa in Cersei's body, Kink Meme, Queen Sansa, Slow Burn, marital rape, prompt, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 37
Words: 40,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: ...it will never match the rising sun.
   Prompt: It is the end of the world, and due to magic and plot, Sansa's consciousness is permanently transported into the past; into Cersei's body immediately before she meets King Robert in the Sept of Baelor. How does Sansa, as Cersei, change the realm for better or for worse politically and personally as Queen? How does Sansa, as Cersei, deal with being married to Robert? And how on earth does Sansa, as Cersei, deal with being Tywin's daughter, Tyrion's hated sister, and Jaime's beloved?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wigbee71583](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wigbee71583/gifts).



> This is a prompt fill, so if you like it, the idea is not mine. However, I am open to suggestions for future snapshots of Sansa's life as Cersei, so please review and give me your ideas!

She sways suddenly, Melisandre’s burning form turning to ash before her very eyes – the actual world itself turning to dust, and fire, and blood, and she clenches her eyes shut so she doesn’t have to see this hell anymore, no more darkness, no more death, and then she is falling away and-

“My lady?” a hand catches her arm, the ground is suddenly solid, and for the first time in years sunshine beats against her back. She is heavy, weighed down by fine clothes, bedecked with jewels and gold, which feel so strange after years of darkness and cold and thick furs. Instead of the terrible silence of the world after the Wall had fallen, she hears life – shouts, cheers, everything in the background like a fly buzzing around her head. More hands reach out to hold her as she stumbles, and this strange, stationary world’s spinning axis slows down to a gentle stop. “My lady?” the same, unfamiliar voice, says again.

Sansa opens her eyes.

“I just need a moment,” she says, in a voice that is not her own, “I just need a moment.” Apparently satisfied, the hands release her to stumble a few steps away, and she takes one deep breath, and then two. Three, four. Finally, she trusts herself to examine this body which doesn’t belong to her.

She looks down at her hands as she leans against a smooth marble wall, unable to truly take in anything about her current location other than that the sky is blue and the sun is shining, like it had in her childhood. They are long, and thin, white knuckled and soft, much like her own hands, before the Others came, but they are not.

Melisandre had said that she would be back in her own body, if young. But her hands had never been this manicured, never been this narrow. These are not her hands. And this is not a child's body. Surreptitiously, aware that whichever noblewoman’s body she had stolen was being watched, she gently pulls a strand of hair in front of her eyes. Blonde, not auburn. Next, she inspects her dress. It is golden, with red details. It is gorgeous – a smaller house would not be able to afford this kind of finery, in fact, the Starks of Winterfell would struggle. So it would have to be a rich house, possibly a great one-

It occurs to her, suddenly, whose body she could be inside, and an icy hand curls around her heart. She hadn’t looked like this, her body, when she’d known her, but years before perhaps this would have been-

“Lady Cersei?” The same girl’s voice from before. Sansa’s throat contracts. Cersei. She is inside Cersei Lannister’s body. She is lucky that Cersei hadn’t had any breakfast, otherwise she would be losing it at that moment.

Somehow, she manages to pull herself together enough to respond, straightening up and going inside of herself, like she had taught herself to do all those years ago at court. Or rather, Cersei had driven her to teach herself. What had happened to Cersei, she wondered? Where had that vicious, cruel woman disappeared to? “I’m alright,” she said, turning to brush the gown down before blanching at the sight that greets her.

Thousands upon thousands of people are cheering, held back by ribbons, garlands and guards in Lannister gold, and they are all screaming for her. It is a miracle she doesn’t faint right there. Closer, there are three people, two little girls with flowers in their hair and one older girl who had spoken previously. The maiden, a blonde haired green eyed girl, who is almost certainly another Lannister, rushes forward to primp at Sansa’s dress, hair, jewellery. The girl steps back, and beams.

“You look beautiful, my lady,” she says, sounding awestruck. Sansa doesn’t mean to see herself, eleven years old, in the girl but she does. _The queen is so beautiful,_ she remembers thinking, when she had first seen Cersei Lannister in Winterfell, _I want to be just like her._ Just like her... Sansa wonders if Melisandre had messed up the spell, or if she had. No need to linger, she tells herself. There’s no going back, the Red Woman made that clear. She smiles a tight smile that she hopes looks thankful, before remembering that Cersei had never had to try at seeming benevolent. In front of her, perhaps in reaction to that smile, the crowd grows louder in their chorus.

“It’s alright to be nervous, my lady,” the girl said, smiling kindly up at her, “it’s not every day you get married after all. Best to have the nerves out here than in there.”

Sansa bites down so hard on her tongue she draws blood. Coppery, slick, thin and terrible, she swallows it all down Cersei’s pale throat. That is why there is a crowd. That is why they love Cersei instead of despise her – they don’t know her yet. Like in a nightmare, she slowly turns to see the entirety of the marble building she had been leaning on moments before.

The Sept of Baelor, decked out in banners of black and red and gold, with stag banners and lion banners and so many goddamn flowers she thinks she’s going to scream. “Mmm,” she makes a sound of agreement, all the while scrambling for what she can do, where she can go, how she can get away- but she comes up empty.

“We’d better go in, my lady,” the girl says, and as if on cue the two little scowling flower girls each take up one corner of the golden train. The flowers shoved into her lax fingers are red roses, and without meaning to she brings them up to her nose and breathes in the scent of them. It has been so long since she has smelled roses.

She pays for her inattention, as the Lannister maid gives a signal to the guards at the door, who begin to pull the great oak doors open, and music begins to pay. Sansa’s stomach rolls, and the thorns on the rose stems dig into her hands. Without meaning to, she begins to walk, Cersei’s muscle memory propelling her down the aisle. The last thing she hears before she steps inside the sept is the maid’s squeal in her ear: “You’re so lucky to be marrying the king!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How do I look?” she asks, flipping Cersei’s long blonde tresses behind her shoulders. She knows the answer already, she has seen Cersei older than this, madder than this, and still thought her more gorgeous than any other woman to touch the earth; tonight, she will look like a goddess.
> 
> Tyrion smirks, more used to Cersei’s vanity than anything else. “Like a queen, of course,” he drawls.

Sansa knows she’ll have to face Cersei’s brothers at one point, but she hadn’t expected it to be Tyrion who she came face to face with first. She had stood, extracting herself from King Robert’s side with pretty words, as he bellowed about her beauty and fell deeper and deeper into his cups. Sansa remembered Cersei’s words from years ago: _love your husband, if you can._ Sansa has been bound to enough monsters over the years, what is one more?

Behind the king, Ser Jaime had made an aborted movement to follow her, but old Ser Barristan had kept him still with a look. Sansa was grateful – she needed to get her head straight, needed to think about what to do, what she could do, how to play Cersei, the woman that she had never truly understood. How to play Cersei for a decade, more, how to give birth to... she shuddered as she thought of Joffrey. Surely, she would not have to love him, even as a babe? 

“Sweet sister,” a familiar voice snaps her out of her thoughts as she turns, the abandoned corridor not as empty as she first thought, “I would have expected to find you basking in your glory.” Tyrion waddles to her side, younger than she had ever known him – his face is not so twisted as it is in her memory, but he is still a grotesque, even before his majority. “You have married the king, after all. Father must be _so_ proud.”

Mockery drips from his tongue, and Sansa knows how Cersei would respond. She’s seen it enough times – a biting quip about him being a little monster, about how he’ll never inherit the rock, finished off with a sprinkling of personal knowledge that would cut him deep. 

But Sansa is not Cersei. Sansa is not Cersei.

Her situation suddenly is bathed in a new, fresh light, and Sansa almost weeps in relief. She cannot be Cersei. She can never be Cersei. She must be herself. That is how she will change things, change them for the better. This is how she will safeguard Westeros against the Others. This is the path. “And you?” she asks Tyrion, cocking her head to the side, “Are you proud of your sister?”

Tyrion frowns at her, and looks her up and down. “Are you quite alright?” and then, after a beat, “What have you _done_?” Internally, Sansa sighs. It will take a long time for Tyrion to trust her sincerity, which she understands. She herself had known that whenever Cersei seemed kindest, she was truly at her cruellest.

“I’ve married the king,” Sansa replies, trying to give him one of those Cersei-looks, the one where her eyes seem challenge you to say any different on pain of death, “that is what I have done. It’s all I ever wanted, after all.” She cannot discard Cersei all at once – it must be slow, bit by bit, piece by piece. Robert won’t notice, because they were not acquainted, but Cersei’s family... the Lannisters would be harder. But she had to do it. And where better to start than with Tyrion, the man she married in another life?

Tyrion stares at her, before swallowing. He takes a step back. “Your groom will be waiting for you, sweet sister,” he finally says, voice a little raw, no matter how he tries to hide it, “and our dear father.”

Sansa nods, and smooths down the bodice of her dress. “How do I look?” she asks, flipping Cersei’s long blonde tresses behind her shoulders. She knows the answer already, she has seen Cersei older than this, madder than this, and still thought her more gorgeous than any other woman to touch the earth; tonight, she will look like a goddess.

Tyrion smirks, more used to Cersei’s vanity than anything else. “Like a queen, of course,” he drawls, before giving a flowery gesture towards the doors to the great hall, where the music and laughter and bawdy jests seem to have somehow, inexplicably, grown louder. Sansa grins at him with all of Cersei’s perfect white teeth.

“Accompany me?” she asks, holding out her hand. Tyrion blinks at it, and then at her.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he says, “but I’ll find out.”

_No,_ Sansa thinks, even as he reluctantly takes hold of her wrist, a mockery of how a taller lord would enter with his lady, supporting her with his crooked arm, _you won’t. Not even you could dream of something this strange and terrible._ “I play at nothing,” she says, smiling at him, “I wish us to be friends.”

Tyrion reaches out and knocks the doors, alerting the guards on the other side to open them again. “We have never been friends, Cersei.”

“We will be,” Sansa promises him in a low voice, as the double doors swing open. Tyrion’s grip on her wrist tightens, almost threateningly, but she doesn’t let it show on her face. She beams, a vision of loveliness, the new queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

She does not need to become Cersei. She will make Cersei become her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the old world, Sansa had been twice wedded, never bedded. The first had been thanks to Tyrion's conscience, the second thanks to Harry's murder shortly before their wedding night. She had thought she'd been ready for it both times.
> 
> She hadn't been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains marital rape. Please do not read it if you don't feel you can cope with its explicit nature.

In the old world, Sansa had been twice wedded, never bedded. The first had been thanks to Tyrion's conscience, the second thanks to Harry's murder shortly before their wedding night. She had thought she'd been ready for it both times.

She hadn't been.

Robert Baratheon was not Tyrion, or Harry - he was nice to look at, for now at least, but he was stinking of alcohol and he wasn't careful, or gentle, or kind. In, out, in, out, in, out, in quick, harsh movements. Like some kind of machine, or plough. Sansa doesn't mean to cry - she hadn't cried when Tyrion had watched her slowly strip, she hadn't cried when Harry had looked at her with pure lust just before he collapsed from the poison in his wine. But she is here, and her father's best friend is rutting inside of her like an animal, and there is blood on her inner thighs, seeping into her arse crack, and it _hurts_.

Stop, she wants to tell him, beg him, stop. But she is too afraid - afraid of ruining this doomed marriage again, afraid of Robert's hard muscles and slurred speech, afraid of sending the world down the same path as before. So she stays quiet, sobbing with every cruel thrust, until finally, finally he spends, making a sound like a dying animal before rolling off her. "Lyanna," he pants as he almost immediately falls into a drunken stupor, "Lyanna."

Sansa waits for a beat, and then two, before gingerly anchoring herself off of the bed, Robert's seed mixing with the blood from her sex, every step feeling more dirty and violating than the last - something inside of her is pulsing, like a heartbeat but lower, and she mechanically pulls her shift, still pooled on the floor, over her shoulders. How, she wondered as she slowly opened the chamber door, could her father be friends with a man like that?

"My queen," the girl from before is there, and hands her a thick, soft robe that smells of lavender, "we have a bath prepared for you." Sansa is more thankful than she can put into words that she says nothing about her puffy eyes or pained steps.

"Good," Sansa says in a voice little louder than a whisper. She clears her throat, and tries again. "Good," she repeats, stronger now. She is the queen. Isn't that a thought? Finally, she's a queen, just when she had lost all desire of ever holding the title. She hobbles off down the hallway, Robert's loud snores following her.


	4. Chapter 4

Sansa thanks all the gods that she hadn't drunk as much as her new husband had, else she would probably be in a great deal of discomfort, going by the way he was wincing beside her at the high table, massaging his forehead with his knuckles while chewing grumpily at his breakfast. She sipped daintly at the weak ale she had ordered, and tried to pretend she hadn't noticed her spouse's weakened state.

"So, my love," she finally plucks up the courage to address the King, a man she had been wholly unfamiliar with in her old life - she remembered his death, how could she forget it and all that came with it? If nothing else, fat old king Robert had been a mediocre ruler, his one accomplishment being that he had been the truest friend her father had - something she was still struggling to come to terms with. "I trust you are feeling well this morn?"

The king grunts something, and then shifts to look at her after a poorly disguised glare for Jon Arryn, a sour smelling old man with kind eyes. "Yes, my lady," he says slowly, clearly still trying to make a good impression despite the travesty of their bedding - perhaps he did not remember it. Sansa hoped so - she was trying to forget, "I feel most refreshed."

_Do you now,_ Sansa thought to herself skeptically. "I am most glad, your Grace," she told him, and without thinking put her- put Cersei's hand- on his muscled bicep. He went still below his touch, but Sansa didn't allow herself to pull away. She had the make the marriage between them work this time around. For all his faults, Robert was a strong, good looking man with pitch black hair, a dimpled chin and piercing blue eyes, reminiscent of the sea. It was not the same otherwordly blue of the eyes of the Others, and Sansa thanked every god there was for that.

How, she wondered, not for the first time, had this warrior, this Adonis, become the King Robert she had known, four and ten years in the future? It hardly seemed possible that they were the same man. Others in court were far more recognisable to her eyes, even after years of war. For example, the Kingslayer had not changed much, if at all. Here he was just as beautiful, if not moreso, than he had been in the future, rakish, golden and more lovely than such a monster had any right to be.

As if he had heard her thoughts, the man in question caught her gaze as she looked away from Robert's face for a moment, and his similarity to his twin struck her again, the face she saw in the mirror that morning having scared her a little. They were like mirror images, the two of them - Sansa had seen it before, years ago, the Queen and her knight at Winterfell, more like one being than two. She had been jealous at the time - of the queen's beauty, her wealth, her status, her family. Hah. If only she had known.

This morning she had watched herself - Cersei, Sansa, gods knows - being dressed. Watched how the blonde hair fell down Cersei's back in soft curls, how her nose scrunched up, pursed the red bow lips. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Sansa felt like tearing the blonde tresses from her own scalp, felt like scarring Cersei's delicate ivory skin. Cersei's true weapon had been her beauty - Sansa must use it. She must use every advantage that this body has given her. But she doesn't want to. God, she doesn't want to. She doesn't want Cersei's body, not her beauty, not her wealth, not her family, not her status, not anymore. But she is stuck here with all of them, and she may as well make the best of it.

Robert shifts, breaking her out of her reverie, but he doesn't shy away from her touch. He looks at her hand, curled around his arm - to an outside observer, Sansa thinks cynically, it would appear perfect. They are such a handsome couple - for now, anyway. "My lady," Robert says clumsily, eyes darting to Jon Arryn who Sansa can see in the corner of her eye nodding encouragingly. It takes all she has not to burst out laughing at his apparent inexperience, when she knows that he has known more women already than most men would in their entire lives. "Would you join me for a ride? Today, I mean?" he asks, and Sansa allows one of Cersei's slow, winning smiles spread over her face.

"Your Grace," she says in Cersei's voice, that voice she despises more than perhaps any other, "I would be honoured."

Robert makes a low noise in his throat, and nods, quickly retracting himself from her touch. "Good," he announces, "I'll send for the horses to be prepared." He pulls a fried egg onto his plate, and cuts into the yellow yolk, sending it spilling over the plate. Sansa licks her lips and pierces one half of it with her fork, swallowing it in one. The king stares at her as she licks her lips.

"I look forward to it," she says, locking her eyes with his. One, she counts to herself, two, three. She sharply turns back to her meal, tossing Cersei's hair over her shoulder. She can feel his eyes on her, but doesn't acknowledge it. Robert needs to want her, maybe even love her - men in love, Sansa knows better than most, are easiest to control.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As most of you probably know, November is Nanowrimo, and due to the positive feedback I've been getting for this story, I've decided this will be my 50K project! If you could keep on reviewing my chapters it'll motivate me to write more and with any luck, I'll complete both this story and Nanowrimo by the 30th! :) If you're taking part in Nanowrimo, my username is whatmonsters, feel free to come and work towards completing Nano together!

Robert disappears off after a stag with little to no warning as one of the bloodhounds suddenly lurches to the west, barking frantically, most of their hunting party racing after them. Sansa is content to sit and watch - she is not expected to race and she isn't sure enough of Cersei's body yet to try. A few retainers stay behind, including a couple of Cersei's ladies and a kingsguard. They've been away from the Red Keep and Sansa is glad of the distance, the castle and her having too much history for her to feel comfortable there. It seems every corner she turns she can see herself, her true self, being battered, bruised and abused, can feel her salty tears from years ago - or years in the future, she doesn't know - on her lips.

She has to learn how to live with it, with the memories, she knows she does, but the Kingswood never harmed her and there is something freeing about the wind rippling through her hair, the feel of a strong mare beneath her and dappled sunlight. Before, all the horses had been eaten or turned, the sun swallowed by darkness. Already, Sansa feels herself doubting her own memories, although she knows them to be true. Could it truly have been so terrible, so dark, so cold, so empty? Could she have lost all she had, her home, her family, her strength? Could it ever have been so bad?

Yes, she reminds herself, yes it could. And yes, it had been. Selfishly, she is glad to have escaped that living hell - so many had perished there, and she had not wanted to be the next body to be burned.

"Cersei," it takes her a moment to react, perhaps a little too long, but the Kingslayer doesn't seem to notice as he pulls his steed alongside her own mount. He is blindingly beautiful, and had she not known what he could do - what he would do, in another life - Sansa would have been as charmed as she had been the first day she'd seen him in Winterfell's courtyard. "Are you avoiding me?"

Sansa smiles tightly, and a frown darkens the kingsguard's face. "What is it?" he asks, and reaches out to put his hand over hers. She flinches, involuntarily, and then curses herself. "Cersei," he says in a low voice, and she can hear an undercurrent of true concern, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she says, knowing her smile is all too fixed. Doubt flickers in Ser Jaime's green eyes. She herself had been witness to the relationship between the queen and her brother - at time they had seemed to orbit one another. Twins, born together. If anyone was to guess she was not who she appeared to be, it would be Jaime, and she had the horrible feeling that she wasn't acting enough like Cersei to convince him.

"Honestly, Jaime," she said, taking initiative to reach out and give his hand a squeeze before retracting the limb after a couple of moments - they were close, after all. This close? How close? She had never had a sibling she knew as well as Jaime knew Cersei. She had to prove to him she was Cersei, more than anyone. They were close. She remembers the rumours, Joffrey's sneering, handsome, terrible, Lannister face. Nothing had ever been proven, but Sansa had always had a suspicion - had always thought maybe, maybe... she had hoped to avoid this meeting a little while longer. They were close. Her suspicions were not enough. This same suspicion had gotten her father killed. She smiles into his beautiful, deceitful face. Stannis had been so sure, Robb had been so sure, her father had been so _sure_. Sure enough to die. Sure enough to die. They were close. "You worry too much. I have-" she almost stumbles, but remembers Cersei's favourite term for her husband after a moment, "the oaf under control. Everything is going perfectly."

For a moment, she is terrified she had played it all wrong, as for a moment the Kingslayer's face is completely smooth of any emotion, but then it breaks, a wry smirk beginning to twitch at his lips. "Oh, sister dear, I had no doubt in your skills." He lowers his voice, tilting his golden head towards her, "I am on watch for you tonight. Shall I visit?"

His tone left no doubt as to what he was implying.

"No," Sansa says after a pause, even as her stomach churns, "I am the queen. Nobody can doubt my loyalty to the king."

"Nobody would," his voice is amorous, and Sansa has to fight to keep her expression neutral, "I am your guard, sweetling. Your brother, your white knight. There would be no suspicion about me, I am the last man you would betray the king with, after all."

"No, Jaime." Sansa's voice is stronger than she had expected, "You assume too much."

After a moment, Ser Jaime pulls away, flashing her a white grin as he has his mount trot back to his original posisiton, "I'll be outside your door, all the same."

From far away, Sansa can hear Robert bellow in victory, the confirmation of her father's suspicions making her feel nauseas. She still remembers running to Cersei - kind Cersei, gentle Cersei, beautiful Cersei. And then kind, gentle, beautiful Cersei had her father killed for this truth, this truth she would have died to keep a secret.

They were more than close.


	6. Chapter 6

Sansa lies awake that night - Robert had come and gone, thankfully this time sober enough to at least perform the pretence of affection, and if Sansa closed her eyes, she could pretend she was somewhere else. He's outside the door, she can see his shadow through the gap, and her mind races as she tries to figure out what to do.

She will not have sex with Ser Jaime, no matter whether or not it would make him suspect, no matter that he is not technically her brother - she will not do it. This afternoon had finally confirmed her long held suspicion of Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen's parentage, and she would not give birth to Joffrey.

Never.

She would rip the babe out of her womb before she ever allowed that to happen, Sansa vows to herself. It would be a kindness. She needed Robert to have legitimate heirs to avoid the war, she needed to give him those heirs.

But she also needed the Lannisters not to suspect. She closed her eyes, but she couldn't sleep, her mind whirring around at a thousand miles a minute. Tyrion clearly hadn't known - in the future, or now. Although... her mouth goes dry. Could he have known, her twisted, kind husband? She shakes the thought away. That Tyrion doesn't exist yet. Tywin Lannister would have rather killed his own children than have such a scandal associated with House Lannister - he didn't know either. If it was just the two of them, Cersei and Jaime, just the two of them who knew the terrible truth...

What was Jaime to say, should he go to Tywin, or another Lannister? Cersei was not acting like herself? They would laugh in his face. He wouldn't be able to say that he thought so because she wouldn't sleep with him. Resolved, Sansa sits up, and uses her bedside candle to light her desk candle. She pulls out a sheet of parchment, and grabs an errant quill. _Change your shift with another guard,_ she writes in cursive script _, never guard me at night again. Do as you are ordered, by your Queen._

Odd, she thinks, as she looks at the drying letters. Her hand did not move as her own did, remembering things from Cersei's life that Sansa had not been present for - it was not her own handwriting before her, but Cersei's. She bites her tongue, and folds the note in half, before slipping it under the door with purpose. The shadow shifts - she hears the scrabbling of the paper against the tiles.

A thump. She pushes back against the door as there's pressure applied. "Cersei? What is this?" Ser Jaime's voice is full of confusion. This, Sansa gathers, is not how the nights between them normally go.

"Leave," she says quietly, "or I'll scream."

There is nothing but breathing between them, before the shadow deftly moved away, and Sansa finds herself wilting with relief against the door. Footsteps snap against the tiles outside until they fade away, raised voices. Wearily, Sansa turns back to Cersei's bed, and blows out the candle. She dreams of fire.


	7. Chapter 7

Sansa is getting very, very tired already of Briony - Cersei's own, personal lapdog - following her everywhere. Sansa is no stranger to ladies, or being under constant observation, but something about Briony's worship of Cersei, about her wide eyes and earnest manner truly gets under her skin. But Briony is also the best asset she has in the Red Keep, as she is Cersei's creature in both body and soul, and Sansa needs as much help as she can get, considering the current, unstable political climate.

She has seen Dorne's ambassadors lurking in the dark corners of the Keep, red faced, emanating fury. Everytime they see her watching them, the scorn and hatred in their faces grows. Sansa hadn't known much about Elia Martell or Rhaegar's children in her old life - her father had sheltered her in her childhood, and the rest of the time she had more to worry about than a long dead princess and her murdered babes. But here... here, Elia Martell had been alive less than three moons ago, here, Elia Martell was in every stone of the castle, every Dornishman's eyes, on every high lord's lips. Elia Martell - murdered, raped, martyred. Elia Martell, the woman that Cersei, and now Sansa, had replaced with painful ease.

 _You are not wanted here,_ their eyes tell her, _how dare you stand where she stood?_

Sansa wonders if their hatred had bothered Cersei the first time around - it seemed foreign to her that Cersei would have her own opposition to her ascension as queen, her power being so absolute when Sansa had first arrived as the new Queen-in-Waiting that such a thought had never truly seemed possible. Elia Martell, her bloody body, her slaughtered children. All for Cersei's rise, Cersei's benefit, Cersei's power. Not Sansa, not Sansa, but here she is, benefitting anyway.

They had burned the children's bodies, as was the Targaryen custom - but Elia Martell's bones had been shipped back to Dorne. The princess' presence looms over her, and whilst the majority of the servants had been replaced by Robert when he took the capital, Sansa can see their cutting stares on her back. Some of them remain, some of them remember. Sansa wishes she did not understand as well as she does.

( _Daddy! Daddy! No, you can't! Daddy! Please, no-)_

She's been avoiding Ned Stark - she only needs to make it another few weeks before he sets off, back to the North. Back to mother, back to Robb, before she was even a twinkle in his eye. _Go back_ , she wants to hurry him but cannot risk Robert's ire or the Lannister's suspicion, _go to Winterfell._ _Stay there. Never leave, never come South again_. She has seen the stocky shape of her father in hallways, sat one or two seat placements away at dinner, but she doesn't trust herself to speak to him, doesn't trust herself to see him, truly see him, and sob like a damn child.

She will avoid her father, avoid any reminders or echoes of who she used to be - she will busy herself with Briony's adoration and the court's ladies vying for her favour, with Jaime's confusion and fury, with Tyrion's terror and hope. She is here to save the world, not to see her father for one last time, but- but she wants to. But this is not about what she wants. She knows the dangers that come with wanting.

All Cersei Lannister had ever done was what she wanted - she wanted to be queen, wanted her brother, wanted her husband dead, wanted her son on the throne, wanted to watch the world burn along with her. Sansa wants nothing but to prevent the horrors of the world before - save the small children she had seen frozen in avalanches, keep the Wall, woven with magic and ice, standing tall and proud. She wants to keep the people of Westeros alive, should the Others still come no matter her efforts, instead of ready to butcher one another. She wants her family to live - even if they won't be her family anymore.

But... there is one person she cannot, will not, allow herself to send North without seeing.

It takes a hell of a lot to convince Briony to take the afternoon off - even more to find herself some plain clothes, and hide Cersei's golden mane of hair under a scullery maid's hair wrap. The babe is watched over by a wet nurse - brown skinned, plain, and fast asleep on the small cot in the nursery. This, Sansa surmises, must be Wylla. Her father's partner in crime, along with Howland Reed. The three of them would take the secret to the grave in her world, only for Bran to reveal the terrible truth when it was all finished, and they were all doomed. Too late. None of them had expected to die so young. Nobody had really expected to die at this age. Sansa herself hadn't.

( _I'm not afraid,_ her brother told her the last time they'd met. She had known as well as he was that he was lying, and she'd pulled him into a hug so tight her arms ached with the force of the embrace. She had wanted to remember his smell, his warmth. She had forgotten after a few years of the cold all the same. _At least this way... you'll have a chance. All of you._ )

He is awake, but quiet, his large grey eyes staring up at Sansa as she stands over the crib. In his pupils, she can see Cersei's face staring back at her. "Hello, Jon," she breathes, hunching down to lift him gently from the mattress. He wiggles, but makes no sound. _He knows me_ , Sansa tells herself, even though he clearly cannot. "I won't let it happpen again the same way," she whispers in his tiny, shell-like ear, "You'll grow old, have sons and daughters of your own. You'll never know the Long Night. I swear it, I swear. It won't happen again."

If Jon, as she knew him, older and bruised and battle hardened and the slightest bit broken, had been in the room, he'd have laughed at her, talking to an infant like he could understnad the weight of her words, like she could swear to control the will of the Others, the dragons, the magic. But she knows the life that awaits Jon - knows he'll experience the neglect of her mother, the distate of her younger self, the knowledge that he is of less worth in the eyes of the world to other children - but he won't know the truth. So she can give him kind lies and possibly empty promises now.

What can it hurt?

"She loved you," Sansa chants to him, "she loved you more than anything. You deserve more than this world can give. I'm sorry for what will happen. I'm sorry about how things have to be. But you will live this time. You will-" Sansa's voice almost breaks, and she looks over fearfully at Wylla, who hasn't stirred, "You will," she continues, in a lower tone, "you will do everything you ever wanted to do, and be everything you ever wanted to be. I'll make sure you have good options, good choices. I'll make sure you live a good life. I promise. I promise. _I promise._ " Like her father before her, Sansa keeps her promises.

Sansa only realises she's crying as she closes the door to the room behind her, and she furiously wipes at her eyes, looking around to make sure she hasn't been spotted. She hurries along the servant's staircase, unwilling to risk capture. She did what she said she would. She dared not linger.

Darting into the corridor outside her room, she gets an odd look from the guard at the door whose eyes widen as he looks into her face and realises the door he had been guarding had been empty of the queen. He opens his mouth to say something, but Sansa silences him with a look of ice. His jaw shuts with a click. Pushing into her chamber, she reaches up to pull her hair out of it's covering when she stops, seeing a slender figure looking out of her window.

"Where," Tywin Lannister's cold voice snaps through the air, "have you been?"


	8. Chapter 8

"Lor-" Sansa manages to catch herself, aware that for all that the relationship between Lord Lannister and his children was different to that between her own father and his children, they wouldn't call him 'Lord Lannister'. "Father."

"Where," he says again, turning to her, looking over her poor garb with a disparaging eye, "have you been, Cersei? Is this how I raised you?"

Sansa swallows, and feels the compulsion to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness. She barely manages to resist. "No, father," she cannot keep her eyes from falling to the floor.

"What is this you are wearing?" he gestures angrily to her outfit, "Have you no respect for your station, for your family, for your position?"

"I-"

"What if you were seen? The queen dressing as a beggar, walking around with no guards? What is this insult? I come here to see you before I leave, and instead I find you gone?"

"Father," Sansa raises her voice and Lord Tywin's face becomes even more imposing with every passing moment, "it is not as it appears."

"Well what is it, then?" He snaps at her. "After all I have done to raise you to queenship, is this how you repay me, how you repay your mother? To drag our family name through the mud?"

"I wished to see how the castle was transitioning, Father," Sansa says, the lie slipping off her tongue with a practiced ease. _We're all liars here_ , Littlefinger's voice hissed in her ear. "I have noticed some servants seem dissatisfied with the turn of events, and I wished to see how many of the castle's staff were truly Targaryen loyalists."

She holds her breath. For a moment, she thinks he won't accept it. "You should not have done this without consulting me," Lord Tywin says in a low, dangerous voice, "anything could have happened, and we have many agents who could have done this job for us."

"No," Sansa says, lifting her chin as she has seen Cersei do a thousand times before, meeting the Lord's green eyes, "they could not have. Our agents are well known in this place, the servants know them too well from your years as Hand. The castle doesn't know my face yet - they have seen me in a veil, far away at a high table, and dressed in gold and red. Nobody looked at me twice, and nobody, not even the Kingsguard, realised I was gone. The mission was a success, father."

A pause. Lord Tywin flexes his hand. "Just because you are queen," he tells her measuredly, "does not mean that you are immune to suspicion and fault, especially as you have not yet produced an heir for Robert to ensure your status. You will never do this again, am I understood? You are not a child at the Rock anymore. This place will eat you alive."

The concern displayed in his words, although not reflected in his tone, took Sansa aback for a moment. She had never truly considered Lord Tywin capable of worry. "I swear I won't father," she says, knowing when to give in. Lord Tywin looks pleasantly surprised, and she remembers too late that Cersei had never known when to drop a topic. He will be gone soon, she comforts herself, and his knowledge of Cersei's character with him. With he and Tyrion gone, it will just be her and Ser Jaime - he will be the toughest nut to crack.

"What did you find, then? You say the mission succeeded." Lord Tywin says it like a command, and Sansa takes it as one. She remembers how she had to repeat what Joffrey told her to say with a shiver - _my brother is a traitor, my brother is filth, my brother must die._

"The majority of the servants have loyalty to the Targaryens still," she reports, cobbling together an idea from the feelings she's been getting the past few days. "Very few of them had any love for Aerys, but they still loved Rhaella, Rhaegar and Elia. The anger over the children-"

"I know of that," Tywin says drily, "I have been told often enough. They had to die, everyone knows that, else Robert's throne would never be secure. But the mother didn't have to die, nor did it have to be so brutal - I told those oafs to dispose of the children neatly, not to touch Elia, I didn't even mention her. The deaths should not have been so bloody - a firm pillow over the face would do."

Sansa's stomach rolls as he speaks of murdering children as if it is the weather. She thinks of Rickon, and his grisly end. She swallows.

"They hate me," she says in a low voice, and knows it to be true, "they hate us. They hate Jaime, they hate you, they hate anyone bearing the name Lannister. The Dornish ambassadors are promoting the anger, I swear to you. They must go, and the rest of the servants must be replaced. It must be complete change, not just halfway, else I will wonder every night whether something has been slipped in my food."

Sansa knows she has sold it to him when his face closes off. "You have done... well." The way he says the final word makes it clear to her that it wasn't one he attributed to his daughter very often. Sansa felt a sudden surge of pity toward Tyrion and Ser Jaime - if this was how Lord Tywin was all the time, it was hardly a wonder they had ended up as twisted as they had. If nothing else, Sansa had always known her parents loved her. "But you will never speak of this incident again - not to Robert, not to Jon Arryn, not to Jaime. It will stay between us. I will do what needs to be done."

"Yes, father," Sansa says obediently, and waiting for the chamber door to close behind him. When she hears the click of the bar, her knees go weak. That had been close. That had been far too close.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little note, I am reading all your lovely reviews, and they are such a help for my inspiration, but I can't reply to every single one in depth as I normally do as I'm focusing so hard on the writing. But please, please continue leaving them, they are such great motivation and so kind!

Sansa doesn't mean to overhear - well, not at first, anyway. She supposes any kind of innocence she could have claimed seeps away once she slows, hold up her hand as she catches up the end of the sentence. Behind her, Briony hushes the rest of her shadows. She looks back at them, a challenge in her eyes. Stay silent.

She turns back to listening, taking a small step forward as quietly as she dares. "...the Lady Cersei will have to be consulted."

"Queen Cersei," she hears the voice of her husband, strangely morose. She wonders if he's sober for once. "My queen. Hah. What a joke... it's not fair to her or to me, you know that Jon. This whole thing was a mistake."

A sigh. "Robert, you know why that had to happen. You know. As much as you may hate to admit it, Lyanna is dead-"

"I know she's dead, dammit!" A crash. She hears glass shattering. Sansa cannot help herself flinching. "I know, I know. I know." His voice wavers. Maybe, Sansa wonders, this is why he avoids sobriety.

A warm hand curls around Sansa's own - she looks down, staring at the small digit. Briony smiles at her, and for the first time, Sansa is honestly glad she's beside her. In Briony's eyes is a question, a request. Should they move on? Pretend they hadn't heard anything, hadn't stayed around. After a beat, Sansa shakes her head, and strains to hear the rest of the conversation.

"Ned is taking her bones back to Winterfell," Jon Arryn's measured tones remind Sansa of Hullen calming a wild foal in Winterfell's stables. "Don't live a lonely life when you have a beautiful woman who wants to share it with you."

"I never wanted her," Robert spits, "and I never will. I married her on your advice, for her father's support and gold. What could I do for a woman like that? Nothing. I don't want her. Perhaps you should have married her instead of your Tully girl." Beside Sansa, Briony stifles a gasp. Sansa tries not to take his words personally - it is not about her, it is about Cersei. But is it really about Cersei? Even if Robert had married the maiden herself he wouldn't have wanted her if her name was not Lyanna Stark. It was about Lyanna, always Lyanna. Nobody else. Nobody else.

"Your grace," Cersei's guard says in a low voice, "is this really something you should hear-"

"Shut up," she says in a quiet, sharp voice, "or I'll have your head." He shuts up.

"You're disappointing me, boy," Jon Arryn says, "you could be the king that these Seven Kingdoms deserve, and instead you'll do what? Give up on your marriage before even a moon of it has passed? Give up on your kingdom that you have barely won before your coronation? No, you are not this shadow of yourself-"

" _SHE_ _WAS ALL I WANTED_!" Robert roars, "I'D GIVE UP THIS CROWN, THIS KINGDOM, THAT WOMAN, ALL FOR HER! I'd... I'd give it up..." Both pity and disgust twists in Sansa's stomach.

"What good would that do, boy?" Jon Arryn tells him, "What good are you like this? Ned and I, we sacrificed everything we had to knock Aerys off of that throne, and raise you to sit upon it. You will try with that woman, you will ask for her opinion, you will make a damn effort. You understand me? For the love you bear me, the love you bear Ned, try. Lyanna doesn't have to be the only woman you ever love. It doesn't have to be now. It doesn't have to happen like this. Give her all you can bear to. Give her children, if you can't give her love."

"On our wedding night..." Robert takes a harsh breath in, "I fucked it up, Jon. She can't even look at me. I can't look at her. I called her... I..."

"Yes, I suspected you might have done something stupid." Arryn says with a sigh. "Listen, I don't think it's too late. Involve her, give her power. That is what she has been raised for."

"I don't want to be king," Robert moans.

Sansa doesn't know she's going to do it until she does. She can feel Briony's hand slipping out of her grip, the fine wood underneath her palms. The scene opens out before her, Jon Arryn, bent and shaking, Robert, head in his hands, surrounded by broken glass and red-faced. They look up together, their faces registering shock. Arryn in particular looks as if he is looking upon a ghost.

"I don't care about any of that." Sansa makes herself say, keeping her shoulders back and her face smooth. She must be a queen now. She must be the queen that the true Cersei never was. "You don't want to be king," she says slowly, "you believe the burden is too great. You were raised to be a lord, not a monarch, but I was. And helping you... that is my purpose, Robert. My only purpose. I am here to share the weight of the crown with you."

"How much did you-" Horror registers on the faces of both the mentor and the student.

"All of it." she purses her lips, letting the fact sink in. Arryn begins shaking, harder than before, reminding her of his not-yet son's shaking fits, and Robert's face registers nothing but misery. "I am here to help you, it was what I was raised to do, what I was born to do. You may never love me as you loved her, I can accept that. I have loved others," she pauses, swallowing. The faces flash before her eyes. "but none of them were both my husband and my king. All I ask is that you listen to me, and you do not publicly humiliate myself, my family or the children we will have. I know who I married: you have bastards, indulge in whores, and you may never love me. And you should know who I am: I am the daughter of the Great Lion, I am your queen and will one day be the mother of your children. I am not some whore you may humiliate for coin. I am bound to you, as you are bound to me, and I will not allow you to drive these Seven Kingdoms back into warfare."

A beat, where Sansa forgets to breathe. Then Robert sobs, and he reminds her of Shireen, his not-yet-niece, the little grey girl at the Wall who wept when she heard of her father's death in the Land of Always Winter. Jon Arryn opens his mouth, and then closes it again. "My queen," he stutters, "I am sorry you had to hear-"

"I didn't have to hear anything," Sansa corrects him, "I chose to hear. I am not one to shy away from hard truths. And already I have observed things that need addressing, even if you are reluctant to do so: the prisoners from the Rebellion should be either executed, ransomed or sent to the Wall, instead of left in a limbo. The coronation needs to occur before the lords of the land begin to leave, else they may no accept Robert's kingship and my queenship. My brother must lose his white cloak."

Jon Arryn blanches, and Robert kneads at his temples. "Your grace, there is no precedent for removal from the kingsguard-"

"There is also no precedent for a king of the Seven Kingdoms that does not bear the name Targaryen. But here we are. My brother must be released back to my father."

Jon Arryn purses his lips. "And if we refuse?"

Sansa tilts her head to the side. "Then I will tell me father all I have heard here today, and you will answer to him for your disrespect towards his daughter and your queen. Both of you."

"You're a bloody cruel woman, you know that?" Robert scoffs at her, standing at last, face still puffed with tears.

"I've been told that, yes." Sansa replies without missing a beat. "I can be a good wife to you, your Grace. But you had better be a good husband to me."

She turns, heart thumping fiercely in her chest. She sees Briony and her guards staring, and she sets off at a brisk pace down the corridor, and after a moment she can hear their feet slapping against the stone, hurrying to catch up to her. Once they have reached her chambers, Sansa lets out a long breath. "How was that?" she asks Briony, who looks at her, open mouthed.

"You were magnificent," Briony finally manages, and Sansa allows herself to relax. She took a risk, a dangerous one, and it may yet prove to be a mistake. But right now, she thinks she deserves a rest.

Sansa collapses on her bed, and sleeps.


	10. Chapter 10

"Tell me about her; Lyanna."

Robert freezes, his back bent from where he had been pulling on his boots at the side of the bed. Sansa purposefully looks at him through lidded eyes: let him think she is drunker than he, let him think she has let down her guards. Let him think that it is the wine asking, not the woman. "What do you want to know?" he finally says, voice grating.

"Everything."

Slowly, Robert puts his weight back down on the bed, his boots abandoned. "She was... beautiful. Dark haired. Her eyes were grey, like storm clouds."

"That doesn't tell me anything about her," Sansa points out, raising her eyebrows. The king lowers himself, back to lying beside her. It's a warm night, and Sansa's breasts are free, her arms tucked underneath Cersei's golden mane of hair. They are distracting him, but she doesn't cover herself. Every single advantage she has, she must use.

"No," Robert says slowly, "I suppose it doesn't. Let's see... she loved riding. She was fast, damn fast, on the back of a horse. She would've had a sword had her lord father allowed her. I would have." His contemplative tone heartens Sansa: these memories are not what he thought they were, she can hear it in his voice. She never knew her aunt Lyanna - she wonders if Robert truly had either.

"What else?" she asks, and begins stroking his hairy forearm. His eyes follow her hand as if mesmerised. "There must be more."

"She was fierce," he said in a choked up voice, "full of life. We sent one another feathers all through her courtship - I sent her feathers from bird's I'd shot down, and she sent me feathers from the animals her hawk brought down. Silverswift, she called it. Every time a raven came, a feather clutched in it's talons... my heart felt like it would burst out my chest. She was so... different. Different to all the others."

Sansa makes sure to keep on carressing his arm as she urges him on. "Different, how? I know you've known many women. What was so different about her?"

Robert opens his mouth, and seems to struggle for a moment. "She wasn't like the southern ladies I'd known; if we'd wed, I could have been the happiest man alive. She'd have been true, and independent, and... and..."

"You don't know what she'd have been," Sansa says in a low voice. Robert's nostrils flare.

"I do!" he said defensively, pulling away, "I knew her, I was betrothed to her for years! We were meant for one another!"

"Tell me more about her, then," Sansa says, taunting him, lip curled. "Tell me about her. Not her looks. Not her family. Her."

"She loved winter roses!" he said triumphantly, "Ned always said so, she loved the glass gardens of Winterfell, she loved the godswood, she loved songs, tourneys, the North, the wind in her hair-"

Sansa props herself up on her elbow. "How did you know those things?" She already knows the answer, but she wants to hear him say it, wants to hear him admit that his fantasy was nothing but that, a fantasy constructed from the bias of an elder brother's love: _Ned always said so._ The words ring through her brain. Who had her father been, years before she had ever been born? He did not sound like a man she recognised.

Robert shrugs dismissively, and sits up, hands clenching and unclenching - she's got him angry, fired up, with the very idea that he didn't know his lady love as well as he thought he had. She has to tread carefully - he is built like a god, powerful and could snap her neck with one wellplaced blow. "That doesn't matter!"

"Then tell me."

"We exchanged letters!"

"What about? About her love of roses, of riding, of tourneys and songs? Or about you? About _your_ castle, _your_ sports, _your_ victories? You?"

Sansa knows she's gone too far when a huge, meaty fist catches her squrely in the face, a loud crack swinging throughout the bedchamber. " _Ned_!" he bellows as his hand connects with her face, " _Ned told me_!" Sansa licks her lips, and can taste the blood welling up from her split lip, the bruise already stinging on her cheekbone. Inside, she smiles. "I thought so," she panted, letting the weak moonlight catch on her bruise, her blood. The fury drains away from Robert, and he scrambles off the bed.

"You made me," he curses, finger pointing at her accusingly, "you made me do this. Why would you ask about her? Why would you press, make these- these lies up!"

Sansa laughs, bitter. It hurts as her injured muscle tries to stretch. "Oh, husband, you are exactly the man I thought you were: cowardly when your precious ego or your delusions are questioned, quick to lash out and blame others for your mistakes. We both know that I did not force you to lay hands upon me, that was your choice. It was your choice, as well, to turn Lyanna Stark into the perfect women when all you knew of her, from her directly, not from a brother who barely saw her, were from letters that were moderated by her father, and from a single meeting at a Tourney where she was crowned by another man. You," Sansa spits blood at his feet, "would be disappointed by any woman, even the Maiden herself, including Lyanna Stark."

Robert sways. He looks at his fist, unmarked. His hand shakes. "I... I..."

"You will never lay hands on me again, do you understand?" Sansa tells him. "This is your last warning. A Lannister," she says with relish, having always wanted to turn their unofiicial motto against someone, "always pays their debts."

"You're a bloody menace," Robert breathes, gathering up his clothes still pooled on the floor, looking at her with something resembling fear in his eyes, "What kind of woman are you?" Even though she is the one bleeding, Sansa knows he is afraid of her. It's strange to feel powerful when all she has ever been is powerless.

"I'm doing you a favour," Sansa snarls at him, "she was not a goddess, she was a woman, and she's _dead_. Life goes on, no matter who we lose. You do not have the right to ruin this marriage before it has even begun."

"Me!?" Robert exclaims, as if truly appalled by the idea, "You're the one who has done nothing but disrupt the workings of the castle, of my life! You! You think yourself to be completely impervious to wrongdoing, you always have an answer, you savage _bitch_ -"

"And yet," Sansa says, "I think we both know what this will look like tomorrow, when I go downstairs with marks upon my face. I'd wager your beloved Lyanna would have been just as disgusted with you as I am right now."

Robert stares at her. Really stares at her. "What do you want?" he grits out, "What do you want from me? Love? Riches? Power? What is it you think I can give you? It hasn't been a moon yet and already I feel like you've ripped my soul from my body, searching for something I cannot see, and found me severely lacking. Did you think men were angels, woman? What is it you search for? For you have already found my numerous failings as both a man, a king and a husband, and pointed them all out with devastating accuracy."

"I want you to do _your duty_ ," Sansa yells, losing her composure at his persistent victim complexes and obtuse worldview, "you will give me children. You will keep the kingdoms harmonius. You will attend your small council meetings-" Robert goes to speak, and she silences him with a glare, "I know you haven't been attending, and it's not good enough. You will include me on the running of the country and the keep, and give me my own allowance to spend on charities. In return, we'll never have another conversation like this. In return, I will be the mother of your children, I will raise your heirs to think their father is more than the shadow of a man that I see before me now. In return, I will keep your kingdom functioning, I will spread your good name around. They will write songs about you, King Robert the Good and Brave. And you will know who will be responsible for that; _me_ , and _me alone_ , not you."

"...damn you, woman." Robert snaps, searching for something to say and coming up empty. "Damn you."

"Are these terms not fair, dear husband?" Sansa challenges, "I am offering far more than I am receiving, I think you can agree. And after all, all I am to you is a way into my father's good graces and gold. All I desire is for you to think of more than the next whore, or the next glass of wine."

"You're a fucking bitch," he snaps, marching out of the room, clothes bundled under one arm, clearly not considering the burden of dealing with her whilst dressing to be worth it. When the door slams behind him, Sansa reaches up, and gingerly touches the already puffy area around her eye. She'll get Briony to cover it up. She wouldn't want all of tonight's progress to be lost, after all. Sure, he's angry now, furious. But after a few days, he'll see things her way. She's left him no other options.


	11. Chapter 11

"Was it you?" Sansa has barely granted entrance to Lord Tywin before he is marching in, clear purpose driving him.

Sansa cannot help the self satisfied smile that spreads on her face. "Was what me?"

"Your brother- Jaime. He's been-" The old man straightens, and begins again, possibly having developed an awareness of how dangerously close he was to losing his composure. "I have just been informed by the Hand of the King that Robert has decided to release your brother from his kingsguard vows - _was it you?"_

"I may have... pushed the king in the right direction."

Emotions that Sansa had never imagined the Great Lion to be capable of played across the face of Cersei's father - shock, joy, disbelief, pride. "My girl," he says in a hoarse voice, and he surges forward, taking Sansa's face in his hands, his fingers pressing uncomfortably into her chin, but she doesn't wince, or pull away.

Instead she smiles, smiles that it has worked. Jaime is going, and with him, all he knows of his and Cersei's illfated love affair. She smiles that Robert has weighed all his options, weighed their marriage and her influence, weighed his drink and his whores, and found the correct solution. It worked. It worked, and the relief she feels is beyond overwhelming. "My lioness," he says, "you are so like your mother, I don't know how I couldn't see it before."

Once, Sansa had been told she was like her mother every day of her life. Catelyn Tully and she had been two peas in a pod, but then her mother and everyone who had known her perished, and Sansa was left alone in a world with too little colour and even less warmth. She wishes, suddenly, that Tywin had told Cersei - the real Cersei - this. It would have meant more to her than every comparison Sansa ever had been given to her mother.

"Father," she says, casting her eyes down, playing the part of the dutiful daughter as she knows he will expect, "I am glad you are pleased. I thought to ask you, but the opportunity arose and I took it without consulting you first. I apologise for my disrespect."

"Cersei," Tywin says, his green eyes almost boring into Sansa's skull with the intensity of his gaze, "never apologise for this. Never. This is your greatest victory. You have done what I had given up on being possible. You have succeeded, my girl, where I and others have failed. You are a credit to me, Cersei, even if I do not deserve the praise for this transformation. I know not when you grew up, or how, but I am so very pleased it happened now, as you become Queen of these seven kingdoms. You give me hope for the future of our house, and the grandchildren that will one day sit upon the Iron Throne."

Something thick rises in Sansa's throat, and she finds herself blinking back tears. Why is she crying? Tywin Lannister is not _her_ father, he is Cersei's. Sansa's own father is dead. At least, her father as she knew him is dead. Was dead.

In either world, her own father had never said the words that Lord Tywin had to her. "Thank you," she manages, "will Jaime be returning to Casterly Rock with you?"

The Great Lion nods, stepping back and releasing her stinging face. "He will. The boy has the gall to act ungrateful, but I suppose he doesn't believe it to be real yet. I will have him married post-haste, so the king is unable to change his mind, although the majority of the kingdom's most eligible girls have recently been married off. I cannot tell you the relief I feel that I will not have to worry about leaving the Rock to Tyrion after my death. In the hands of Jaime, I believe House Lannister will survive me."

"I could not agree more," Sansa says, paying lip service. Cersei has hated Tyrion all her life - she cannot suddenly defend him without a good reason. Unfortunately, she knows Lord Tywin will live for many more years, and whilst she cannot quite get her head around who is her family and who is not in this world, she will not risk angering the gods by becoming a kinslayer. "Perhaps, if I may be so bold, you could focus on Jaime by leaving Tyrion here, in the capital?"

Tywin frowns, "I wouldn't want the Imp to be a burden to you or the king. I am grateful of the offer, all the same. Gods knows I know little enough of what to do with the boy."

"He wouldn't be a burden, father," Sansa explains, mind racing to find a reason to seperate Tyrion from his - their? - father and his toxic influence. "You would be doing me a favour. I plan that he distracts Robert, and Robert distracts him, so I may play them off against each other to find a little peace in this place."

Lord Tywin threatens to smile, but thankfully spares her the sight. "If he will truly be no burden, I must admit I do not want the little monster around the Rock any longer than necessary. Though, do make sure that you do not avoid the king entirely - you must give him an heir, Cersei, to secure your position."

"Worry not, father," Sansa tells him, "he visits me every night. I am sure our union will soon bear fruit."

Lord Tywin nods, more to himself than to her. "Then I have nothing else to say to you, except that I have faith in you. You have shown me today what you are capable of; I will never again make the mistake of underestimating you."

Sansa smiles, and on instinct, reaches over to wrap her arms around Lord Tywin. She freezes as soon as she does, as does Tywin, but he does give her a pat on the back before extracting himself from the awkward embrace. "I will write to you from the Rock when Jaime and I arrive," he says to her, brushing invisible specks of dust from his tunic, "And rest assured you and the king will both recieve an invitation to the wedding."

"Do you have a girl in mind?" Sansa inquires, racking her brains for a suitable bride of the right age. She doesn't know many Westerners, and she doubts Tywin would want Jaime to marry outside of the West when she has married so high. The lords must be appeased somehow, and Tyrion would be an insult rather than an honour to his banners.

Lord Tywin nods pertly, "I have a shortlist. Jeyne Farman seems to be the best contender currently. I know you two were friends in your youth."

It is strange to imagine Cersei as a young girl, with friends and innocence. "Yes," Sansa lies, "she was such a nice girl. I think she would be good for Jaime. I believe that the war haunts him."

Lord Tywin grunts in agreement. "He'll get over it. Men like him are born for battle. He has fighting in his blood."

Sansa doesn't say anything. Fighting was in her blood too, but in a different way. She had fought for everything in her life, one way or another, and she did not look forward to another lifetime of war over every little scrap of happiness, but she feels that these are the cards she has been served.

"Will you stay for the coronation?"

Tywin shakes his head. "Ordinarily, I would. But you have already earned that crown, and I don't believe you need me to watch some buffoon in bed sheets give it over to you. Jaime needs to get away from here. It is full of memories for him."

 _And it is not for me?_ Sansa wants to scream. _Can't somebody take me away too?_

"I understand, he needs you," she says instead, "You must make sure he knows that the war is over, that Aerys is dead. He did his duty."

"I know," Lord Tywin said, stepping back. "I must go."

"Have a safe journey, my lor- father," Sansa says, slipping, and is taken aback when he takes her hand and kisses it briefly in response.

"My daughter," he says, "my queen."

She is absolutely certain that was one title that Cersei, in this world or the old one, had never been called by her father. In her old life, some people had tried to crown her a queen, but she had never been made for a crown.

Here, people seemed to disagree. Perhaps it is Cersei, even in her absence, blinding them with her beauty. Sansa simply uses the tools made available to her, and hopes nothing blows up in her face too terribly.

"Briony," Sansa calls when Lord Tywin has left, "fetch Lord Tyrion for me."

Briony's brow puckers, but she curtseys deeply all the same and turns, her skirts puffing out behind her. Sansa knows that she cannot afford any missteps when she comes face to face with her once-husband. She clasps her palms together, scared of how well everything has worked thus far, knowing that she mustn't consider these successes to be a given. _Gentle mother, font of mercy..._


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry I missed yesterday's update, I was pretty distracted with the US Election. And this morning I was just staring at the news, freaking out. So glad I'm not American right now, but my condolences go out to those who are. I hope you enjoy the chapter, there'll be more coming later today to make up for yesterday's dip in productivity :)

"You want me here? With you?"

The incredulity in Tyrion's voice is expected, anticipated even, but Sansa still finds herself sighing all the same. "That is what I've said yes, and father agrees it is for the best."

"But," the boy said, "you hate me!"

"I do not," Sansa told him, "you are my brother, my blood-"

"I've been your brother for eight years!" Tyrion cries, "It never mattered before! I don't know what you want from me, Cersei, but I can't for the life of me figure out what. Just ask, and don't torture yourself for having to keep me here."

"I want you here, with me," she says measuredly, "I need you by my side in this, Tyrion."

Tyrion scoffs, his small ugly face becoming the slightest degree more grotesque as he scrunches it up. He is not even ten namedays old, Sansa tries to remind herself. He is younger than Arya was when they arrived in King's Landing in another life. "You've never wanted me by your side for anything," he says in a scathing tone, "You always wanted Jaime, never me. Who wouldn't? Which is why I don't understand you at all, Cersei! Why would you send him back when we both know that you would rather have him with you than at the Rock, and why would you request my staying on when you despise me?"

"I regret the way I treated you," Sansa begins, carefully picking her words. "I was young, and angry, and-"

"It was two moons ago!"

"I know," Sansa says, cursing Cersei in her mind. "I'm sorry. That's what I'm telling you. I'm sorry for how I've treated you. I'm sorry I didn't make you feel like you were part of the family. It was a mistake, Tyrion, one I'm trying to correct."

Tyrion is a little slower to respond this time, suspicion glinting in his mismatched eyes. "I don't believe you," he says, finally.

"Fine," Sansa says shortly, her patience having come to an end. She has used it all up on Robert and Tywin and Jaime and Briony, and she has a pounding headache. "Don't believe me. It's the truth, but I can't make you accept it. But whether you believe me or not, you are staying in the capital when Father and Jaime leave. That's a fact. I hope that you'll realise that I'm being honest when some time has passed."

Tyrion steps back from her as she rests her head on her hand. "Where will I go?" He sounds very young, at that moment.

"Briony has arranged for your chambers to be in the Maidenvault," Sansa tells him, "she'll take you there. You'll have attendants from the Rock staying with you and lessons with the Grandmaester daily. Robert and I will be having a small dinner tonight; you are invited."

Slowly, the boy nods. "Alright," he says softly, before bowing his head incrementally - it's hardly anything, but it's a start. Sansa reminds herself wearily that she has years of this to look forward to.


	13. Chapter 13

For all that she knows Robert is a petty, irresponsible man not dissimilar to Joffrey, if less sadistic and more neglectful, he does look glorious in his house colours. He wears a black velvet tunic, a golden sash with a black stag charging across his chest and his hair is tied back from his face with a golden ribbon.

Sansa knows, from the look on his face as he catches sight of her, that she is just as dazzling to look upon: Briony had chosen the dress, telling Sansa airily that the last time she'd worn it at the Rock all the men in the room had looked at her all night long. Sansa had agreed noncommitally, having no memory of the event, but she believed it when she caught sight of herself in the mirror: the scarlet dress clung to every curve, small golden lions roaring at one another in a pattern more intricate than that of a snowflake - her red lips and golden curls matched the colour pallette perfectly.

"My lady," Robert says after a moment, "you look wonderful."

Sansa bows her head in acceptance of the compliment - she can see how Cersei grew so vain after years of constant praise about her beauty. "You look very dashing, my lord," Sansa responds, her hand settling in the crook of Robert's arm without even thinking, having had to go to so many official ceremonies with him in the past few weeks that it was automatic. Sansa doubts she could have resisted becoming vain either, had she possessed half the beauty Cersei had in her own body.

Her own body... it has been a while, she thinks suddenly, since she has thought about it. She tries to remember her own face, but it blurs - she had blue eyes, red hair, thin lips - or had they been full? Had her jaw been oblong or square? Had she had crooked teeth? The vision of herself swam before her eyes. She shivered.

"Shall we go in?" Robert asks, looking at her with those blue, blue eyes. The guests will be waiting, she tells herself, as she stalls. Is he afraid of her? Of the still-fading bruise on her cheek? Of her father's wrath and her brother's fury, of the power of House Lannister that has been at Cersei's back all her life, but that Sansa has never before experienced in such intensity. His eyes show no fear. He has probably reassured himself he made up the worst of it, that she was bluffing, that he is the king and she his wife. Sansa hopes he won't force her to put him in his place again - it was draining, and she couldn't keep on doing it month in month out until he got the message.

Sansa realises she's been silent for too long. "Of course," she manages, and the pages at the doors announce them. She has been in this hall before a few times - Cersei had sat at the head of the table, her children down the sides, Sansa seated alone. The set of the table is different now - Robert pulls out one of the two chairs at the head of the table, with a slightly smaller back than the other, and she sits gracefully, eyes catching Tyrion's mouth as it twists with nervousness. Sansa wishes she could appear nervous. The Grandmaester, a man who she knew was Lannister to the bone, had also been invited by her - more for propriety's sake than for any desire to converse with him. Pycelle was no friend to her.

She hadn't asked Robert who he was inviting - she lays eyes on a small, dark haired boy who looks far too thin for his age. This, she realises, must be Renly. Her assumption is confirmed as she sees the straight backed, nigh on skeletal man who sits next to him - this, she decides, must be Stannis in his younger days. His Baratheon eyes are set deep into the hollows of his face, his mouth set in a straight line. It is strange to see him young - he looks as weary in spirit now as he does in two decades time, and it saddens her. Stannis deserved happiness, no matter how brief, but his life seemed to be one tragedy after another.

Beside the brothers Baratheon sits an older man, instantly recognisable as Jon Arryn by the chain of small, golden hands he wears proudly on his chest. He looks positively ancient next to the redheaded woman beside him - who, after a moment, Sansa identifies as her Aunt Lysa. She hadn't even thought about Lysa. She knows she should be courteous, sympathetic, everything the other Cersei had never been, but she isn't sure she can do it, every wrong that Lysa had done to her springing to the forefront her mind.

She can see her Aunt's bloated, future form, her tumbling out of the moon door, her raking nails and paranoia, and Sweetrobin's shaking sickness and his attachment to her, like he owned her, as his mother had taught him she did. Sansa remembers the fear, the fear that the one person in the world who should and could still help her cared not for her plight, the way her nails on her back had left marks as Sansa had stared out of the moon door, down, down, down to death. If her army had joined Robb's, if she had sent men to the Wall, if she hadn't fallen for Littlefinger and his lies, if she'd never poisoned Jon Arryn and never sent her letter to Winterfell... if, if, if. In the end, Sansa has to drag her gaze away from her aunt with her heartbeat pumping in her ears. She can only hope she won't have to say anything to her tonight, or for quite a while.

The final seat is empty, something that confuses Sansa. The place is set, the seat immediately to Robert's right hand side. Surely nobody would dare come late for the king, especially when they were so honoured in their placing at the table?

No sooner had Sansa thought as much, was there a knock at the door that had just closed behind them before a figure hurried in. Sansa's throat closes in horror as Ned Stark walks into the room. "I apologise for my lateness, your Grace, your Grace," he bows first to Robert and then to her. "I was unavoidably detained."

Sansa hears Robert make a low joke, the chuckles around her. Sansa just about manages to join in. The chair scrapes out, and her father takes his seat. Pride of place. Of course, she laughed at herself, who else could it be? Her luck would allow it to be no one else.


	14. Chapter 14

After the meal, Sansa wouldn't have been able to tell you what she ate. It all tasted like ash, and the wine - surely the finest available - tasted too bitter, then too sweet. Her head span, and she ended up drinking more than she ate. To her amusement, she could see Stannis sending her disapproving glances from his seat. True to form, she realised, he was drinking his plain water with a pinch of salt and lime. Would that she could have married Stannis, she thought desperately as Robert bellowed drunkenly at her side, he would not be as hard work as Robert. He had been the only one who cared about the Wall, and the Others - he would believe her. He would help.

Sansa realises that however the story of this new world unfolds, she will still need Stannis' help. He is, or soon will be, the Lord of Dragonstone, where tonnes of dragonglass sits in the bowels of the castle, forgotten and unused. At the next chance she gets, she vows to herself, she'll talk to him about it. She knows Cersei's preferred tactic of seduction won't work - perhaps, she thinks, the safest course of action would be to tell him the truth - no, not yet. The truth is too fantastical to be believed. If it came down to it, one of the main benefits of being in Cersei's body is the Lannister fortune - she doubted he would turn down a lump sum for a resource considered practically useless.

"Cersei!" Robert's loud voice snaps her out of her reverie. She looks over to him, and sees to her alarm that his face is moving before her eyes. She's drunk far too much. She puts down her glass as quickly as she dares, unwilling to let on to the others that she's overrefreshed.

"Your Grace?" she asks, relieved that her words are not slurring as Robert's are.

"Did you hear? Ned named his firstborn after me! Robb!" he lifts up his goblet, drawing attention from the other guests who are engaged in their own conversations, "To Robb Stark!"

"To Robb Stark," everyone dutifully raises their glasses. Sansa feigns taking a sip.

"Congratulations, my lord," she says to fathe- Ned. This man is not her father. Not yet, anyway. For now, he is barely a shadow of the man she had known Eddard Stark as, "I pray he grows up to be as-" a lump grows in her throat as she thinks of Robb, and the last time she had seen him, four and ten years old with snowflakes melting in his hair. "-as honourable as his father."

"You are too kind, your Grace," Fath- Ned responds, smiling. She had forgotten how he smiled. The way the sides of his eyes crinkled, and how one cheek rose just a fraction higher than the other. He has a shot of green in one grey eye, and his hair is lighter than she remembers. A small dusting of stubble is spread across his jaw, and her heart burns.

"I," she cleared her throat, wondering why she was still speaking. The toast was over, nobody was forcing her to converse with him when she had sworn to herself that it was better for all involved that she avoided him. "I assume your wife will be missing you, my lord."

The smile falls off of her father's face. "Yes," he says, eyeing his wine, "I hope so." After a moment, she realises he has not yet revealed his 'bastard' to the Lady of Winterfell, the lies that he must go on to tell her mother seeming to physically weigh him down. There is a moment of silence between the two of them.

"I, er," she speaks again, internally screaming at herself to stop talking immediately. She should have known to not even engage in conversation. Stupid, stupid. "I heard of your sister's death. I am terribly sorry for her loss, I know how Robert loved her." I know how Robert believed he loved her, she mentally corrects herself. "I could not imagine losing either of my brothers so young, my deepest condolences are with you."

"Thank you," her father says, "she... she was too young."

Without thinking, Sansa picks up her glass and raises it towards her father. "To Lyanna," she said, suddenly painfully aware the room had fallen silent, everyone looking at her with wide eyes. And why shouldn't they, she thought? Cersei had only become queen when Lyanna perished. "she died too young."

"Lyanna," her father says, a moment before everyone else, his eyes locked with hers as they both drank. Sansa's head span as she watched Robert drain his entire glass in memory of his lost betrothed, his face falling into an expression somewhere between longing and despair at the memory.

"We need a singer," her husband announces suddenly, his voice having become slightly rougher, "This has become far too depressing. Find me someone who can play _A Cask of Ale_!"

Stannis excused himself very quickly after that announcement, and Sansa asked Robert to excuse herself and Tyrion as he was too young to be up so late. "Of course," he waved her off, but as she took Tyrion's hand, she saw her father smile at her. Sansa smiled back.

Walking away as the singing began, Tyrion let go of her hand. " _That's_ your husband?" he said in poorly disguised disgust. "I can't believe father would ever marry you to someone like him."

"He's the king," Sansa said simply, and left it at that.

It was the only thing that mattered to Tywin Lannister, in the end. His daughter's happiness was inconsequential.


	15. Chapter 15

Sansa does not wake up thinking that today is the day she'll be officially crowned Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the First Men and the Rhoynar. Instead, she wakes up to Briony bustling around before the sun has even risen, the girl humming a tune Sansa can't quite place, and she appreciates the noise. Before, there had been only the terrible silence, for years. Nobody had the will to sing anymore, as the Long Night drew closer and closer, and dead men rose in the dark.

She languishes in that moment of peace, for a few minutes, and thinks to herself that if she were to die right that moment, she wouldn't even care. Then, she forces herself to get up. Because as much as she wants to relax, rest, cry and laugh, she was sent back for a purpose. And today is the beginning of all the days she has to change things: the moment she is anointed, she has more power than anyone else, save two or three choice people, in the entire kingdom. And that influence - that will help her save the world.

The coronation gown is gold, the same colour as the sun. Her hair is bound back with solid gold pins and a silvery hairnet, her face needing no ardornment as her Lannister features all but glow in the dim morning. She feels like she could be a beacon of light as Briony drapes layer over layer of silk, lace, velvet, all in a gentle gold. She is, she concedes to herself, ravishing. _I will make them love me_ , she vows to herself, as she had vowed so long ago on the night of the Blackwater, _I will make them love me._

She eats nothing for breakfast - instead, Briony massages her temples, her shoulders, her feet. She feels light, and airy, and as the castle begins to wake, she feels powerful. The procession begins an hour after dawn - she and Robert go in seperate carriages, hers adorned with Lannister lions roaring in gold and seats covered in scarlet red velvet. Briony rode with her - Sansa had never felt so grateful for anyone in her life, as she wobbled when she left the carriage but Briony's warm hand steadied her. She wonders, in the old world, what happened to Cersei's kind, excitable handmaiden, and then decides not to think too hard on it. As she couldn't remember her from her time at court, she must have moved on. Sansa hopes she got married, and raised her own family, rather than doing something to earn Cersei's ire. The very thought makes her shudder.

The cheering crowds remind Sansa of when she first landed in this world - she waves, a roar of joy at the acnknowledgement washing over her as she does so. She takes a breath. And then she goes into the Sept.

The ceremony itself is fairly quick - at least, compared to the amount of handshaking and greeting that she and Robert have to endure afterwards. The crown, a golden, antlered design that matches Cersei's blonde tresses, is not one she has seen before - she imagines Cersei must have hated it, the mark of her power marred with Robert's sigil. It is heavy, heavier than it looks, but Sansa keeps her head high and straight.

After the procession back to the keep, where Sansa makes sure to accept flowers from little children, kiss babies and hand out gold coins to those who loudly sing the praises of the new queen, Sansa is rushed back to her room, changed and pushed out again in record time to join the festivities. Unlike the wedding, this crowd is not anticipating seeing either her or Robert naked, and Sansa knows her standing this time as well - all in all, it makes the experience a thousand times more bearable.

The one moment in the evening that makes her stomach twist uncomfortably is when Robert, so drunk he can hardly walk straight, marches up to some Vale women and grips at their breasts and bottoms. Sansa rises above, but tells Briony to keep an eye on her husband for the rest of the night, ordering her to only make her presence known if Robert went to disappear with a lady that was not her.

Suitably chastened by the previous night's dinner, Sansa eats more than she drinks, and as a result is one of the more sober guests by the end of the night, although she is hardly in her right mind.

She ends up pushing her new crown into Pycelle's waiting hands, and she tells him to make sure that nothing happens to it, patting his leathery old hands, before she allows herself to be swept away to dance by yet another lord looking to ingratiate himself with the new queen. The night is a joyous one, and Sansa tries to think back to her old life, and the last festivity she had seen such as this. She supposes it must have been her and Harry's wedding, although the night had ended in disaster - after that, things unravelled very quickly.

"Harry?" she says to a tall, blonde man. He turns, and Sansa's legs wobble as she looks into a stranger's eyes.

"You've had too much, my queen," the Lannister featured man told her, "but I won't tell Tywin if you won't."

"Deal," Sansa said seriously, before bursting into laughter. Everything grows rather foggy after that.

The next morning, she wakes up in a servant's bed - Briony's bed, she realises after a moment, the girl in question curled up beside her. Sansa can see her chambers through the adjoining door, but doesn't feel the need to relocate to her queenly four poster. "I've missed having fun," she confides to Briony's sleeping form, "I never thought this place would be fun."


	16. Chapter 16

Not unsurprisingly, the court is as quiet as a graveyard the next day, most sensible people sleeping off their hangovers in peace. Sansa is still unsure why she decided to get up - her husband had not, but saying that, she thinks she fuzzily remembers him passing out under Ser Barristan's supporting arm.

She hovers for a moment, torn between where to go, but then realises it doesn't really matter where she goes, nobody except her silent Kingsguard will be there - and even then, she has a sneaking suspicion that even Ser Barristan is a little under the weather due to the merriment of the night before.

Sansa follows the tiles, the tapestry covered walls, goes left and right and right again, before she stops. For the first time since she has arrived here, she has found a place she doesn't recognise from before. A dark hallway, steps spiralling down. "My queen?" Ser Barristan questions as she looks down into the darkness.

"I'm alright, ser," she says automatically, brushing off his concern. She takes a torch from the wall, and after a momentary hesitation, she descends.

At first, there is nothing, just blank walls. Then, a shadow jumps out, then another, then the walls are rippling with the twisting shadows, and Sansa is face to face with dragons. Or rather, their skulls.

Arya had been here once - Sansa hadn't believed her, and hadn't been brave enough back then to come and see if her sister had been telling the truth or not. But, Arya was proving her wrong right now. They were colossal - black, some open mouthed and roaring, some no taller than Sansa's ankles. "Gods," she breathes, holding the torch higher.

"Your Grace," Ser Barristan says from behind her, "the king wants these to be destroyed as soon as possible, I don't think it's entirely appropriate for you to-"

Sansa looks back at Ser Barristan. "What harm can they do me?" She asks him, "The dragons are all dead, Ser Barristan. Dead and gone." As if to prove her point, she reaches out her arm, and before she knows it she's touching the second largest skull's snout. She jumps a little at the heat below her palm.

"Your Grace," Ser Barristan's anxious tones echo in the vault, "what is it?"

"They're warm," Sansa says, and without thinking she grabs his old hand and rests it on it too. In the torch light, she sees his eyes widen.

"I've never..." Ser Barristan cuts himself off, almost as if embarrassed.

"You've never?" Sansa prompts him. "There's nobody here, ser. Your secret is safe with me."

"I've been a kingsguard all my life," Ser Barristan says, "and I've never touched them. You may remember, as you were at court when you were younger, but Aerys wouldn't let anyone lay hands on his dragons, and Jaehaerys before him had a similar rule, but he said only Targaryens could touch. I... I never imagined I would get to feel one."

The old man's voice is intensely sad, especially remembering the first king he served. Sansa struggles for a word of comfort, and comes up empty. The dragons are dead and gone, at least for now. In a decade or so, the dragons will come again. But for now, Daenerys Stormborn is still in her mother's stomach on Dragonstone, and Sansa has no intention of killing an unborn child, or preventing the dragon's return. Without dragons, the Others would annihilate them all.

"But here you and I are," Sansa finally says, "in the company of the last dragons."

"It's a shame," Ser Barristan replies, "that they're to be destroyed, I mean. So many years of history, of magic..." He clears his throat suddenly, remembering who he was talking to. "I'm sorry, your Grace. I'm not myself."

Sansa inclines her head, and reluctantly removes her hand from the skull. "We should be getting back," she says, raising the torch in her hand high again, "the castle will be rising."

Ser Barristan chuckles. "I doubt it."


	17. Chapter 17

"You must think yourself very clever, your Grace," Sansa turns from where she is bent over a desk in the archives, knowing that her guard wouldn't have allowed anyone who was a threat close. She is correct: Stannis Baratheon stands before her, and she can already see the echoes of the general and commander he'll become in his strong sense and steady tone.

"Lord Stannis," she smiles, standing, purposefully not responding to his pointed statement. "I apologise that we haven't spoken before now. Your withstanding of the Tyrell's siege at Storm's End is something of a legend already. Allow me to congratulate you personally."

Stannis inclines his head. "It was my duty. But that is not what I came to discuss with you."

Sansa frowns, "I hope all is well, my lord."

"Your makeup is not as good as you think it is," he says in a low voice, and she freezes as he gestures towards her face, where her almost-faded bruise is hidden below a mountain of pastes and powders.

Sansa opens her mouth, breathes, and closes it again. "May I ask if you've informed anybody else of what you've seen?"

Stannis shakes his head. "What would be the point?" He says to her in a knowing tone, "The queen is protected at all times. The only man who could lay a hand on her is my own brother and king."

"I thank you," Sansa says, nervously flexing her hand. She had wanted to talk to Stannis, that was true, but not like this, when she was on the backfoot. "It wouldn't do for a rumour to appear."

Stannis looks at her as if she is a puzzle he can't quite solve. "I must agree, although I offer my apologies, as Robert surely has not."

Sansa doesn't respond. "How did you know?" she asks instead - she has to find out how to hide it better, that's clear enough. All it takes is the wrong person to see what Stannis did and the castle would be full of gossip. "Nobody else has noticed."

A flicker of a smile flashes across Stannis' face, so quick she wonders if she imagined it. "Because, in that siege you so commend me for," Stannis says, "I had to wear my own makeup. Here, I am bare, for the war is won and Storm's End is safe. But there, I would stay up nights mixing potions and pastes from the little we had to diguise myself and Renly's condition. Thus, I learned how to tell a true healthy hue to one that has simply been painted on." He clears his throat, "If the men saw weakness in us, then they might have disobeyed orders. But as long as I looked strong and able..."

"...they still followed you." Sansa finishes, for him, and finds herself truly impressed with his ingenuity. "Quite brilliant, ser. May I ask what poultice you used that worked the best?"

"I'll tell your maidservant," Stannis says, "I don't think a high lady such as yourself would like to know the grisly details."

Sansa almost protests, but stops herself. She'll ask Briony later on - she needs Stannis as an ally in this place. If both of them come to Robert as a united front, they may succeed in getting more done, and preventing some of his numerous extravagances that had so beggared the realm before. "Lord Stannis, I must ask that you excuse me for my state before. Both times you've met me, I've been under the influence of drink. It is not a common occurence that I drink, which is perhaps the reason it is so overwhelming when I do indulge."

Stannis makes a noise in the back of this throat that sounds to Sansa like he's trying to withhold a harrumph of condescension. "I personally do not drink," he says shortly, "I find it robs a man of his wits. However, it is not for the queen to come to me seeking forgiveness for having a few drinks."

His tone made it perfectly clear that he thought the queen should not have indulged in the first place. "And yet," Sansa says to him, raising her eyebrows, "here I am. Not as your queen," she says quickly as Stannis' expression twitches, "but as your good sister. I have married into your family, Lord Stannis. Our younger brothers are of a similar age, and I would like to know you. I want us to be friends."

Stannis blinks, once, twice. He had not expected that. Instead of laughing at his confusion, as a younger her would have, she instead feels sad for him. He is almost eight and ten, and the concept of having a friend is one that doesn't clearly doesn't come naturally to him. "Friends?" he says, as if the word is one he doesn't know the meaning of, "I... I do not think I am very good at friends, my queen. Robert has always been the more gregarious of the two of us."

"Robert and I won't ever be friends," Sansa says frankly to Stannis, and his thick eyebrows knit together. Sansa wonders whether it is in confusion at the concept that Robert could not appeal to everyone, or the fact that she has decided to confide in him. "We will be rulers, monarchs, partners. I will bear his children and be his wife. And for all that we will share one another's lives, you cannot ever truly befriend your king or your husband, when he will always have power over you that unbalances the relationship." This time, Sansa is the one to gesture to her bruise. "Had any other man, or woman for that matter, laid a hand on me, they would have lost said hand, and I could have worn this mark as a badge of honour. But instead, my kingly husband inflicted it upon me, and I must hide the result of his anger for fear of rumours and retribution, not agaisnt him, but against me."

Stannis purses his already thin lips into a line. "I understand," he says, "I too would like to be... friends."

Sansa unleashes one of Cersei's blinding smiles upon her good brother, and is pleasantly surprised to see him only have to check himself for a moment, other men of court having completely lost track of their conversations when she had tried it on them. "Friends, then." She holds out her hand.

He shakes it after a moment - a pleasant surprise, as all men wanted to do was kiss her hand these days, instead of looking her in the eyes and feeling her firm grip.

"My queen."

"My lord."


	18. Chapter 18

Robert comes to her chambers somewhat subdued. Harry had often had days like this; the world was against him, and only she could offer him the complete and utter devotion and attention that would make it all right again. Or at least, that was how he acted.

What really stood out to Sansa was that her kingly husband could have found comfort in the arms of his favourite whores or his lickspittle friends, but instead, he came to her room. Sansa would not make him regret the decision.

"Come to bed, my love," she tells him. She strokes his hair, as she had once stroked Harry's, undresses him slowly, kissing every new part of bare flesh that is revealed. Soon enough, he's responding, moaning. This time, perhaps because he hasn't drunk as much, he doesn't say Lyanna's name. She takes him in her mouth, then in her sex, she doesn't complain about how his seed tastes like sea water or how he doesn't bring her to orgasm. When it's over, he's ready to unburden himself upon her.

"Jon wants me to choose my kingsguard and small council," he complains, bunching up their bedsheets in one fist, and then releasing them as an outlet for his anger - Sansa won't pretend she isn't pleased that this time he is taking his anger out on the furniture instead of on her, "and name a new lord of Dragonstone, as if the Targaryen's don't still hold it! The ships are being built, but it'll be moons yet. I wish I could go myself, run them all through, but Jon says it'd be too dangerous. Dangerous. Hah! I didn't win the Iron Throne by not taking risks."

"No," Sansa agrees carefully, "but you have so many men ready to prove themselves to you, and should you leave the capital I think Lord Arryn fears that somebody may take advantage of your absence, as Rhaegar's absence was..." Sansa trails off as she remembers she is now part of the family that took advantage of Rhaegar's absence. To her relief, Robert doesn't pick up on her flawed argument.

"I suppose you're right," he grumbles, "but damn it, I want them now! For what he did-"

"Your grace," Sansa says gently, "Rhaegar is dead. His widowed mother and child brother will be no match for you. Let them cringe in Dragonstone a little while longer. They aren't a threat to us anymore."

"It's the name, Cersei," Robert says in a low voice, "the name Targaryen. The boy is a child now, but in ten years, he will be a man with the right name and the right look. I'll make sure it doesn't come to that. They can't be allowed to live."

They must live, Sansa thinks to herself, they must live or there is no point in this whole charade. "And the kingsguard?" She changes the subject, hoping that Robert takes the bait. To her relief, he does, hook, line and sinker.

"Well, I have a kingsguard in my kingsguard," Robert says wearily, "everybody wants their second sons or younger brothers to be granted a place, and I have no idea who to choose or how to."

"That depends," Sansa says, "on whether you want to appoint them for their skill or for their politics."

"You see," Robert gestures to thin air, "I'm no damn good at this. I hadn't even thought beyond their skill, and I know nobody beyond the Stormlands."

"...maybe," Sansa says slowly, a plan forming in her mind, "I can help with that."

Robert raises an eyebrow. "You?" He says.

Yes, Sansa grits her teeth, me. "The lords of the land need to come and pledge allegiance to you sooner or later, yes? Why not give them the added... incentive to do so by saying you'll be appointing your kingsguard from the knights who come?"

Robert shrugs noncommitally, but she can see she has his attention. "And once I have them here?" he questions, "How would I know the decent from the rich?"

"A tourney."

Robert's eyes light up at the words, and Sansa grins at his expression. Robert's love of war extended to Tourney's, his beggaring of the realm at their expense proved that. If moderated, and used properly, they could be both a powerful tool to keep the king happy without emptying the coffers. "Go on," he says excitedly, and for a moment he reminds her of Bran. The memory of her little brother's bright eyes feels like a punch in the gut, and she tries to file him away, back into the depths of her memory.

"Have several small events, the winners of each facing one another. The ones who finish, say, third, second and first in the melee and the joust will be rewarded a place on your Kingsguard."

"I like it," Robert said decisively, "I'll tell Jon tomorrow. He'll be relieved enough that I've come to a decision, instead of just picking the first few names that pop into my head."

Sansa has to fight very hard from laughing as she remembers the downright incompetence of the Kingsguard in her previous life: Boros Blount, in particular, should never have been knighted, let alone elevated to the White Swords. She had a feeling that was almost exactly what Robert had done left to his own devices.

"As for the small council..."

Robert waves her off, "Ah, I don't want to think about that. I'll probably just leave Varys as my Master of Whispers, I have Jon as my hand, the rest will work itself out."

"No!" Sansa says, freezing as Robert looks at her strangely for her strong opposition. "What I mean to say," Sansa clears her throat, "is that you are the king. You can't leave the key positions of your council to another, you must choose-"

"Oh, and I suppose you think I should choose your father for some position, a couple of cousins to lick my boots?"

"No," Sansa says empathetically, "I'm saying, do your own research. See who you want on your council. You have a kingdom to heal, Robert. Everyone will be waiting to see if you will make a mistake, especially Dorne. These positions," she stressed, "must be to heal the wounds of the Rebellion. Those who fought for you, those who fought against you - all must have a role, else they may question your authority later. Please, Robert. Don't leave this to someone else."

Robert grunts, rolling onto his back. "Dorne aren't going to be happy unless I can raise Princess Elia from the grave," he snaps, "the Reach starved my brothers. The Iron Islands waited to see who would prevail and still do nothing to help us reach Dragonstone sooner. The Vale, the North, the Stormlands, the Riverlands - you would have me show them no favour for their loyalty?"

Sansa sighs. "Dorne may not be happy," she tells him, "but there's an easy way to make them happier. Give them the Mountain and Amory Lorch."

Robert looks at her sharply. "They're your father's banners. Why would you offer to sacrifice them?"

"My father never told them to be so brutal, nor to lay a finger on Elia, let alone rape and murder her." She shoots back, "Dorne is better disposed towards us, my father is appeased because he has Jaime back, and we needn't fear launching into another war so soon after the last one."

"You..." Robert stares at her, "All the things I had heard of you, from court, from whispers. I thought I knew what I was to expect, but I could never have imagined you would be..." He struggles for the words.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Sansa says, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

Robert rubs his eyes. "No more kinging," he announces, "I'm tired."

Sansa internally sighs, but tells herself she did achieve something. He did, at the very least, buy into her tourney idea, and she knew he'd be turning over the solution for Dorne in his head. It had to be enough, at least for the night.

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days without writing/updating, fml. Please help me guys, I need to write three days worth of stuff today - anybody got any bright ideas??

"You're sure?" Sansa half hopes that the maester will say he isn't. She half hopes she misheard his diagnosis.

"Quite sure, your Grace," Pycelle wheezes, his bald spotted head bowing towards her, "I examined the Lady Joanna when she had a mother's stomach for the first time. If I may say so, your Grace, you are almost identical to her in your symptoms."

Sansa has to fight to prevent her dismay showing on her face. She doesn't want to be like Cersei's late mother - she wonders if this babe is hers or Cersei's, and puts the thought out of her mind. For the rest of her life, she and Cersei are one and the same. "Thank you, Grandmaester," she says, distracted. She rises, smoothing her corset down with strangely steady hands.

"Your Grace," the old man calls, "I must advise-"

"I'll be fine, thank you, Pycelle." Sansa snaps. She has to get out of this room, away from the crusty old maester and his roving hands, has to figure out how this- this _thing_ will change her plans. She had always known and accepted that she would be a mother to Robert and Cersei's children, but Joffrey had not been born for years yet in the other world - why was this so soon? She didn't know how this would affect the timeline, the Greyjoy Rebellion, the future, the dragons - she took a deep breath as Briony's bright ponytail bobbed at the entrance of the Grandmaester's chambers.

"Your Grace, what did he say?" Her handmaiden asked anxiously, wringing her hands, "Is it serious?" Sansa knows she should have expected this worry, but she hadn't - Briony was there when she had hacked all over the chamber floor, and Briony was the one who'd had to clean up the mess Sansa's purged breakfast, after all. She was only human to worry.

"It's not serious," Sansa tells her, "I'm going to the Rookery. Find me some parchment and a quill, quickly."

Briony scampers off to obey, and Sansa shakes her head at her guard as he begins to shadow her up the tower steps. "This is the only entrance," she tells him. If he were a Kingsguard, he might insist, but today Robert has their lone Kingsguard guarding him, and this is a Lannister man through and through. He bows his head, and steps abck to guard the doorway. "Let my lady through when she comes," Sansa orders, "but no one else."

The Rookery is loud, but empty except for the Ravens, large and following her with their bright, black eyes. Sansa sighs, and looks longingly at the open landscape before her - so green, and lush, an alive. This babe... this babe will trap her here for years. She had thought she had more time. For a moment, in the emptiness, Sansa stares at the steps. They spiral down, carved from the same stone as the rest of the keep. She is alone. She could say she fell, she knows that less has caused women to miscarry before-

Briony's footsteps echo, and Sansa remembers herself. This is not a choice she can make. The babe will bind her and Robert together - once she has Robert, she can change things, she can change the world, she can save her family, and the rest of the realm. She can prevent the end of the world.

"I have your parchment!" Briony huffs, her cheeks red and hair escaping from her braid. Sansa reaches out for them, ideas of what to write spinning in her mind. In the end, she writes two short notes, in Cersei's round handwriting:

_Father, Pycelle has told me I am pregnant. The babe will be born in seven moons. I pray this news pleases you. - Your daughter, Cersei._

"Send this one to Casterly Rock," Cersei tells her maid, handing off the note, before turning her attention to the second piece of parchment. On it, she writes: 

_Lord Stark, I am with child. I would request that when the babe is old enough, that they come foster with you and your family. Please send your response soon. - Queen Cersei._

She stares at Cersei's handwriting. She wants to hand it to Briony, the girl waiting expectantly at her side. Her child - her and Cersei's and Robert's child could grow up in worse places than Winterfell. But... Cersei barely knows Lord Stark. She has no reason to ask him to foster the heir to the Seven Kingdoms, especially before the babe is even born. She wants a bond with her family, she wants something but... 

Before she can do something stupid, she rips up the second letter, shedding it into tiny pieces, before letting them fall to the ground.

To her credit, Briony doesn't question her actions, instead locating the bird trained to fly to Casterly Rock, attaching the message to it's sharp talons, and sending it off into the air with a swift, practised movement. Only then, does her maid ask the question Sansa herself is wondering. "When shall you tell the king, your Grace?"

Sansa breathes, and closes her eyes. "There's no point putting it off," she says to herself more than to Briony, before opening her eyes. "Now. Follow me."


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re… you’re what?”
> 
> Sansa stretches her smile tightly across her face. She is an expectant mother, she is meant to be delighted.
> 
> "Pregnant, your Grace."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Arrives eleven months late with Starbucks._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> So... been a while. I've gone through my previous chapters and made a couple of changes to grammar - the only change to the actual story in chapter 19, so make sure to reread that. Gonna try again at finishing this for Nanowrimo this year, so I need to get started again... what can I say, second time's the charm?
> 
> TW: This chapter contains Sansa having a panic attack. Not particularly graphic or anything, but just in case.
> 
> Anyway, here's to hoping that not everyone who's read this before has completely forgotten about it!

“You’re… you’re what?”

Sansa stretches her smile tightly across her face. She is an expectant mother, she is meant to be delighted. Meant to be.

“Pregnant, your Grace. Pycelle confirmed it.”

Robert’s mouth opens and closes, before his eyes drop to her still very flat stomach. “How soon?” he says roughly.

“Seven moons yet,” Sansa tells him serenely, too serenely, “we shall have plenty of time to prepare for your heir’s coming.”

It is the word _heir_ that seems to finally propel Robert past his shock to step closer to her. “An heir… I had not thought it to be so soon.”

 _Neither had I,_ Sansa thinks, but of course says nothing. “It is not so soon, my love,” she tells him, “we are both young, after all.”

“Aye,” Robert says, “I just always thought that…”

Sansa has gotten quite good at recognising the far off look her husband gets in his eyes when he thinks of Lyanna Stark. Even though she is not Cersei, and she knows that even Robert knows now that what he had with Lyanna Stark was an illusion, Sansa feels a twinge of hurt. She is carrying his child, for better or for worse, and he still cannot stop thinking of another woman. More than anything, Sansa can understand how the real Cersei became so twisted and bitter.

She keeps a cheery smile on her face that feels falser with each moment that passes. “I know you never dreamed your heirs would be princes, but a prince is not all that different to a Great Lord. We can do this together.”

Robert, sensibly, takes the out that she has given him.

“Storm’s End is a big responsibility for anyone,” he says gruffly, waving away the ghost of her aunt that is haunting him, “let alone Seven Kingdoms. Our boy-” Sansa barely holds back a wince when he says those words, _our boy._ She may very well have a daughter, and she may even prefer a daughter first - anything to confirm to her that she will not be having Joffrey a few years ahead of schedule, just with different colouring, “-will have a great destiny ahead of him.”

“Indeed,” Sansa agrees, trying to be as agreeable and uninteresting as she can, her skin beginning to itch with the telltale sign that her hysteria is rising, that unstoppable swell that had overcome her more than once in her old world. She hadn’t had an attack since she had come back in time, back into a different body. She had thought, foolishly, that her old body’s failings would be stuck with her old body. “Would you like to inform the court?” It is a battle to keep her voice even.

Robert straightens up. “Yes,” he says decisively, “I’ll call a session immediately. Jon should be happy, he hasn’t stopped talking about me getting an heir since we wed-”

“Wonderful,” Sansa says in a rushed voice, failing to keep the urgency out of her voice. Robert, unobservant as he is, decides to notice her state at just the wrong time.

“Cersei?” he says, her-name-that-is-not-her-name a question on his tongue.

“I’m sorry my love, a mother’s stomach-” she stammers, and he waves her off.

“Rest, rest,” he orders, looking more a king than he has in weeks, "take care of yourself. I’ll take care of the announcement. Your highest priority is to be well.”

Sansa nods tightly, her voice apparently deserting her, as she leaves the room as quickly as she can. Outside Robert’s chambers, Briony waits expectantly. The girl looks up automatically as the doors click closed behind Sansa.

“Your Grace!” she cries as Sansa staggers out of the king’s rooms, her chest rising and falling at an accelerated rate. The walls blur, and her head pounds. Her hands find their way to Briony's shoulders, and she rests her forehead against her maid's. 

"I can't breathe," she whispers to Briony, "I can't, I can't-"

"Shh," Briony hushes, looking left and right before lowering Cersei to the ground. "It's all alright, your grace. You're alright, just a little shaking sickness." Sansa laughs in a deranged way. Shaking sickness indeed. She is not quite as blighted as Sweetrobin, not yet. "Breathe with me," Briony tells her, ignoring her outburst, "in and out, slower, slower. Yes, yes your Grace, just like that. In, and out. Good, good. In, hold it, and out."

Slowly, the ache in Sansa's head lessens and the world levels out again. "Thank you," she tells Briony, or at least tries to. Instead, a strange, aborted sound comes from her chest, and to her horror, she realises that hot tears are falling down her cheeks. Why is she crying? How is she crying? She can't remember the last time she cried. Perhaps it was when Jon went out beyond the Wall, and she knew she'd never see him again. But no, then the tears would have frozen on her cheeks.

What about when she had seen her little brother's body, mangled and broken from being felled in the epicentre of a battlefield? Yes, that had been it. She hadn't cried then, of course not: not where people could see. Why did she have to cry now, when there were so many possible witnesses? She was meant to be happy - deliriously, madly, ridiculously happy. She was carrying Robert's heir. If she was seen to be crying... A gem of Cersei's long forgotten wisdom surfaces in her mind. _A woman may weep, but not a queen._

Perhaps, she thought a little dully, Briony was the only person in this new, terrible world that she was a woman to, and not just a queen. But she kept on calling her _your Grace._ She was doing it now, rubbing Sansa's back and whispering the title into her hair.

"Call me-" Sansa begins, before she realises that no one in this world will ever use her real name ever again. Only she will ever know. She tries once more to picture her face, as she was - she had had red hair, and blue eyes. She knew that instinctively. But again, her face eluded her, just a watercolour palette with no clear detail.

"Your Grace?" Briony asks, pulling back. Hurriedly, Sansa rubs her tears away.

"Nothing," she says quickly, "nothing. It's just a mother's madness. Escort me to my chambers, before I embarrass myself any further."


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before she knows it, Sansa’s stomach has rounded out. To an unpracticed eye, it may have looked as if she was just eating too many tarts, but there is a firmness beneath the skin that belies her true condition.
> 
> Without meaning to, Sansa finds her way to the sept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really was not expecting the fantastic response yesterday's chapter got - ngl, I was kind of expecting everyone to have forgotten about this fic. It was a lovely surprise to get all the feedback I did. Gonna be trying to update daily, as we all know what happens when my updating schedule slips...

Before she knows it, Sansa’s stomach has rounded out. To an unpracticed eye, it may have looked as if she was just eating too many tarts, but there is a firmness beneath the skin that belies her true condition. 

Without meaning to, Sansa finds her way to the sept. She can’t remember the last time she had prayed, really prayed, in her old life - before Robb and mother, to be sure. Before the Red Wedding, and all the horrors that came with it. 

But in this world, there is no war, not yet anyway. Robb is not a king, just a boy, a babe, and her mother still has life in her veins, not salt water and sorrow. Robb would be almost a year old now, she realises as her knees ache against the stone floor of Baelor’s sept. She wonders if he will look like Bran and Rickon did as toddlers - big blue eyes, a mass of curly red hair. 

It frustrates her, sometimes, that she can remember Robb as he was, the snowflakes melting in his hair, but not her own face. And the more she tries to capture that image of him - young, pink cheeked, so young - it slips away from her. She remembers Jon, the streaks of white shot through his dark curls thanks to grief and shock and fear, the twist of his lips as he thought and the grey of his eyes - but maybe, she thinks, she only remembers him because she has seen Ned Stark.

For all that people had spoken of Jon having the Stark look, she had never really appreciated it until she had laid eyes upon Ned Stark at twenty years old. Lucky, she thinks. If Jon had shared the look of his true father, things would be so much more difficult.

She passes months on her knees, before the statues of the Mother, Father, Warrior, Smith, Crone and Stranger. People don’t like it when she kneels before the Seventh deity, they whisper and point and stare. But Sansa feels the kinship strongest with the shadowed entity, perhaps because she too has seen more death than anyone should. 

Sansa is not, in the end, praying to the Seven. She is praying to her family, and their ghosts. 

Mother is her own mother, Father her own father. Warrior is Robb, Robb with the snowflakes still not melted in his hair, and Arya with a needle clenched between her fingers. Smith is Bran, the way he could make whole worlds shake with a thought, and Jon with his sad eyes and good intentions. Crone is Old Nan, and her terrible, true stories, and maybe Tyrion with his quick mind. And Stranger… Stranger is Sansa, and Stoneheart, Stanis and Rickon and Robb and father. Stranger is Jon and Jeyne and Harry and Littlefinger. Stranger is the hollowness in her heart that she cannot fill with love nor longing nor good intentions.

Sansa never prays to the Maiden. She has enough reminders of being a stupid little girl without her help.

People speak of the godliness of their new queen, the hours she spends before the gods without so much as a pillow to ease her aching knees. They say she is superstitious because of how her own mother died in childbirth, because of how her own brother was born misshapen and twisted thanks to the will of the gods. They like it about her, moreso when she doesn’t bow her head before Death. Queen Rhaella, too, had been a devout lady.

It is in the Sept they find her, when she is six moons round with child, her neck cricked from being so lowered in prayer. The ships are ready, Briony whispers in her ear when it becomes clear that the queen will be approached by no other. Stannis has been ordered to Dragonstone. The Targaryens are going to die.

There is no more time to pray.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your grace…” Briony twists her hands in her lap, “I don’t know how I feel about Lord Stannis’ mission.”
> 
> “To catch the Targaryens?” Sansa asks.
> 
> Briony shook her head, and lowers her voice to a whisper. “ _To kill them_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is very unlike me with a twice-in-a-day update. All I can say is, as I said to a commenter, this is the result of a LOT of guilt for leaving you all hanging for so long. The next couple chapters will be dealing with Dragonstone, and I'm hoping to have another in tomorrow.
> 
> This guilt is partly because I just read through every single comment you guys have given me through this entire story - ranging from 'I love it!' to 'Update!' to the incredible essays that tommyginger writes that never fail to make me smile. I love you all, and I'm sorry I let you down. Hopefully I can make it up to y'all.

By the time Sansa makes it back to the Red Keep, Stannis is leaving. Their parties stall the other at the gate, and Sansa hops out of her litter, Briony scrambling out behind her, to approach Stannis on his fine courser.

“Good brother!” she calls, his head turning to her from where he was conversing with yet another familiar face from the future - Davos Seaworth is as physically unremarkable as he has always been, but his hair is brown instead of grey, and the wounds from where Stannis chopped off his fingers are freshly healed instead of long ago scarred closed.

“Your Grace,” Stannis replies, acknowledging her with a shallow nod. “You have caught me on the eve of my departure.”

“I’m glad to have done,” she tells him honestly, “I know Robert wanted to go himself, and I’m glad it is you instead. You are better suited to the task.”

Stannis’ lip twitches in what could almost be a smirk. “Why would that be?”

Sansa just manages to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “You know very well he loses all sense when the name Targaryen is mentioned. You are the more sensible choice in every respect.”

If Robert had gone, he might have been angry enough and violent enough and imposing enough to catch up to them, to kill the children (although there is not meant to be ‘children’ yet - news has not yet reached them that Rhaella is pregnant, although she has to be almost eight moons round by now) before they had the chance to release magic back into the world. Stannis is measured, he knows odds and more than anything, Sansa knows how Stannis’ mission turns out. Even if she wanted to change the outcome, she could not.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t change the aftermath.

More and more often she’s found her thoughts turning to the dragonglass beneath Dragonstone - at first, she had resigned herself to bartering for it with Stannis, but only recently as her child quickened did she begin to see another way.

If she had her babe before Robert named Stannis as Lord of Dragonstone, she could claim that castle and all it contained for her babe. And thus, she wouldn’t need to haggle like a fishwife with her good brother, or give an explanation that she is not yet ready to give. Stannis would revert to his preferred choice of Storm’s End, and the relationship between he and Robert may not grow to be as fractured as it had been in her old world.

Her acquaintance with the other Stannis had not been a long one, but she knew him long enough to know he was a creature built from disappointments and bitterness. She knew, too, that the vast majority of those disappointments had come from her own husband.

Sansa snaps back to the present as Stannis bids her farewell, saying he wants to catch the tide. A happier Stannis, a stronger Baratheon dynasty… maybe, she thinks a little too optimistically, Renly might be tempered from the proud young man who proclaimed himself a king ahead of his elder brother if he isn’t given free reign in one of the richest kingdoms.

Knowing it is ridiculous, Sansa turns back to her abandoned litter - she could easily walk the rest of the way to the Keep, but it wouldn’t be worth the chastisement she’d get from Arryn and Tyrion (yes, her life has become such that a nine year old is telling her off on a routine basis) and maybe even Robert, if Arryn gave him a nudge. Still, it is at least cooler inside her litter - this is the beginning of a long, long summer - and after this, there will be the Long Night. Silently, Briony climbs in after her, and Sansa takes a long look at her handmaiden; she too has grown in the past few months. From a maid on the edge of blooming, her childhood fat has given way to smooth curves, the sun bleaching her hair from brown to a dark blonde.

“What are you thinking?” she asks her, not liking the way she has suddenly fallen quiet.

“Your grace…” Briony twists her hands in her lap, “I don’t know how I feel about Lord Stannis’ mission.”

“To catch the Targaryens?” Sansa asks.

Briony shook her head, and lowers her voice to a whisper. “ _T_ _o kill them_. The servants hear things, your Grace, the things that the court does not. The king all but told him to kill them if he got the chance. The boy… he’s the same age as your own brother, and Lord Renly. Only a child.”

Sansa closes her eyes. She had suspected as much, but she hadn’t been expecting Briony of all people to confirm her suspicions of Robert’s true orders. “If it is any comfort to you,” she says, catching Briony’s gaze, “I don’t believe that even if Lord Stannis does catch up to the Targaryens-” _and he won’t,_ “that he would be capable of murder. He is a just man, Briony. His morals would not allow him to kill the defenceless. He would bring them back to the capital for trial, nothing more.”

Stannis is, she thinks, one of the few men that she can say such a thing about. Her own father - Ned Stark, not Tywin Lannister, though it is getting harder to separate _her_ father and _Cersei’s_ father in her mind - is one, Jon Arryn probably another. She would not count Robert Baratheon amongst their number.

Briony bites her lip. “I have younger siblings, your Grace,” she says with a shaky breath, “and when I think about anyone hunting them down like dogs-” Jeyne’s stories of Ramsay flash behind Sansa’s eyelids before she can stop them- “it makes me so angry. So angry.” An arrow soaring through the air, towards Rickon’s unarmoured chest. Bran’s broken body after his fall. Robb’s corpse, defiled by his murderers. Jon’s back disappearing into the whiteness of the Land of Always Winter, never to be seen again. Arya’s empty eyes, her suicidal charge on the Others with only her Needle.

Sansa’s hands shake. It’s foolish; she know Stannis will fail. She knows Daenerys Targaryen will be born on Dragonstone, and Rhaella will die in the process. She knows that Viserys will take his sister to Essos, and become known as the Beggar King. Knows he will become desperate enough to sell his sister to Khal Drogo in exchange for an army - the last mistake he will ever make. She knows Daenerys will ascend from the khalasar a widow and a mother to three dragons. And for all that - all that _future_ and _potential_ and _possibility_ to happen as it should, Stannis must fail. He has already failed once before.

“I wouldn’t allow it,” she says to Briony suddenly, as the litter trundles to a stop. They had lapsed into a tense silence that she had broke without thinking. Her maid looks up at her. “If Robert tried to have them killed for their father’s sins.”

Briony blinks. “Their?”

Sansa’s blood runs cold. “A slip of the tongue,” she bluffs. _Nobody knows that Rhaella is pregnant_. Stupid. So stupid. “The Targaryen family tree is so mixed up as it is - their father and brother’s sins, I meant.”

Briony looks at her for a long, long moment before nodding in acceptance of her explanation. “It’s just too horrible to imagine,” she says again.

 _I don’t need to imagine,_ Sansa thinks with a heavy heart.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Once upon a time,” she begins, “there was a princess and a queen. But the princess was not the queen’s daughter, no, she was the queen’s enemy-”
> 
> The library doors burst open, and Sansa looks up to see Briony sprinting in, red in the face. “Your grace,” her handmaiden gasps, “news- news from Lord Stannis. The Targaryens - they got away- Rhaella is dead-”
> 
> Sansa closes the book with a snap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: my mum's going to visit my Granny for a few days, and made me promise to do work today. She said, (direct quote): _now I know you've been having a nice time not doing anything for a few days and lounging about in your PJs, but you really need to do some of your homework._
> 
> Just because I've been wearing pajamas for three days straight doesn't mean I'm not doing stuff. Anyway, I don't have any homework, so... here I am again. Hope you enjoy, as always!

She is with Tyrion when the news reaches the capital of Stannis’ failure. The boy still hasn’t quite warmed up to her - a smart move, she allows. He has known eight years of his sister’s hatred and not even a whole year of kindness. But it is happening, no matter how slowly - he talks to her more, asking questions about whatever catches his mind. Dragons, sewage systems, the Seven Pointed Star. Despite her knowing just how clever he is, it is still astonishing to see such a sharp intellect in a nine year old boy. 

And he is a boy. A boy who has grown up motherless and essentially fatherless, who is trying so hard to be cautious of her, but who has been so starved for affection that he seems unable to help himself. It would break her heart, if it wasn’t so already.

“Tell me the one about the Princess and the Queen!” he asks, bouncing on his stunted legs around the royal library. 

“Again?” Sansa asks, but her hands are already finding the worn pages of his favourite story.

“ _ Please?”  _ he asks, and she nods with a smile. He lets out a shout of triumph before quickly crossing his legs and sitting on his hands in an attempt to keep still - he knows how much she values him being attentive.

“Once upon a time,” she begins, “there was a princess and a queen. But the princess was not the queen’s daughter, no, she was the queen’s enemy-”

The library doors burst open, and Sansa looks up to see Briony sprinting in, red in the face. “Your grace,” her handmaiden gasps, “news- news from Lord Stannis. The Targaryens - they got away- Rhaella is dead-”

Sansa closes the book with a snap. Tyrion doesn’t quite manage to stifle a groan of disappointment. “I’ll read it to you another time,” she promises her brother, bending down to squeeze his shoulder as she walks towards her maidservant. “Has Robert been told?” she asks, hand protectively resting on instinct on her swollen middle. 

Briony just nods as she gets her breath back, and there is real fear reflected in her eyes.

“Right,” Sansa says to herself, nervously smoothing out her gown. “Right. Stay with my brother,” she orders Briony, “make sure he hears none of the unpleasantness.” 

For all that Tyrion will grow up to be a political genius, he is just a little boy right now, who doesn’t need to know that his king and good brother wants to kill children younger than he.

The walk to the small council chambers takes her halfway across the castle, but she can hear the bellows of her husband from corridors away. She fights down the urge to run. She almost certainly wouldn’t be capable of such in her current condition, and she needs to stay calm to sort out the whole mess. Or at least, she needs to  _ appear  _ calm - arguing with Robert only riles him up more.

When she does finally enter the small council chamber, everything is in disarray. Her husband is at the head of the table, slamming his fist into the table, and she hears wood splintering beneath his giant fists. Stannis is stood at the other end of the table, his own hands curled into tight white fists at his sides. His mouth is a thin line of fury, and a feign is throbbing at his temple. Varys is speaking throughout the whole thing, his honeyed words clearly doing nothing to calm either of the Baratheon brothers. Jon Arryn has his head in his hands. Pycelle is watching the volleys with interest but not looking like he’ll step in.

“What in the…” she says to herself, when not a single head turns to see who has come into the chamber. She steels herself. “WHAT,” she bellows as loudly as she can, her voice going uncomfortably high, “IS GOING ON HERE?”

That gets a reaction. Jon Arryn looks up from his hands, and Sansa sees that his eyes are rimmed with red. Varys, in one smooth movement, bows before her, his bald head glinting in the candlelight. Pycelle attempts a similar shuffling bow, but ends up only inclining his head. Stannis doesn’t take his eyes off Robert, hand still clenching and unclenching at his sides. In the relative silence, she hears a grinding noise and realises he is grinding his teeth. Robert looks at her with a red face for a few tense moments before giving the table leg a swift kick. 

“What,” she repeats at a more sensible volume, “is going  _ on _ ?”

“My useless brother,” Robert sneers, “let the dragonspawn slip through his fingers-”

Stannis goes white with fury. “Nothing of the sort happened, Robert, there was a  _ storm _ . We couldn’t get through it in time, they had left before we even arrived. I’d like to see you do any better when we all know you’re not exactly a seaman yourself-”

“Why you little-” her husband snarls, eyes bulging. He makes to go around the table, and without thinking Sansa steps between him and his brother. 

“Husband,” she snaps, “everyone needs to calm down. Even if they got away, we now hold Dragonstone - your brother has brought the war to an end finally.” He doesn’t look at her, eyes burning into his younger brother over her shoulder. Frustration driving her, Sansa takes his face in hers and anchors it down so that he is forced to meet her gaze. “The war is over. Who cares for a little boy with no support?”

“No support?” Robert snorts, “Oh, he has support. Dorne, the Reach - there are even Targaryen loyalists in the fucking Stormlands. What happens when that little boy grows up? What happens when his sister flowers and he trades her for an army?”

The surprise she engineers to appear on her face must fool him, as he quickly launches into an explanation that the ‘dragon bitch’ had popped out one last child before dying. The hatred in his tone for a baby shakes her to the core. 

“So they are a boy and a newborn,” she tells him, “they are no threat to us. Without their mother, they are defenceless. They won’t last long in a foreign land, dearest. They have no gold, no contacts, and not even the most staunch loyalists would gamble on a child over you, a man grown who has proved himself countless times in battle.”

A mulish stubbornness comes over the king’s face. “It’s a risk,” he spits, “and it’s only a risk because of  _ him.”  _ He jabs his finger toward Stannis, who hasn’t stopped grinding his teeth in all the time that she’s been trying to calm her husband. 

“No man on earth could have-” Stannis begins again, but she turns towards him and raises a hand, a warning in her eyes. To her shock and pleasure, he does halt in his tirade for a moment, and she turns back to the greatest threat in the room. 

“Lord Stannis did his best,” she says in a level voice, “and he  _ did  _ claim the final lord paramount’s hold. Who cares if a mere child and a babe escaped to a foreign continent? The Blackfyres did the same centuries ago, and they all failed in coming back, even with the right name and look and gold. You are the king on the Iron Throne, and that is the most important thing right now. You,” she reminds him, “kill Rhaegar Targaryen. You won every battle save one in the war. You’re a hero to your people, you usurped a monster. Killing the Targaryens wouldn’t improve your position, Robert - it would only have people talking of how you are afraid of babes. The war is over Robert.” 

Her mind tells her stubbornly,  _ no it’s not. The only war that matters is just beginning. _

Robert breathing slowly evens out. “She’s right,” Jon Arryn finally manages to find his voice, “you are unquestionably the king, Robert. Every lord in these kingdoms has bowed before you. Who cares for the Targaryens anymore? Allow them to live. If they try and rise up against you, you will smash that boy and his sister into the dust as you did their brother, and people will say that they were the ones in the wrong, not you.”

Varys’ simpering tones come in next; “The Hand is correct, your Grace. Show yourself to be merciful. If they try to rise up against you in however many years, then you will have the whole country behind you - try and send daggers in the dark right now, be they wielded by your own brother-” more grinding of Stannis’ teeth “or professionals, and you will be seen to be weak. Let them fade into obscurity.” Pycelle makes a noise of agreement, and seems about to say something, before instead coughing with a wheeze, waving his hand for them to continue.

_ Thank you so much,  _ Sansa thinks acerbically,  _ for all your help after I did the hard work. _

“And you?” Robert addresses his brother, raising his chin. “What think you?”

Sansa turns to see Stannis’ cheek muscle jumping. “Even if I had caught them Robert… what is there to be done? The boy is the same age as Renly, the girl an infant. Even if Rhaella had lived, we all know she was as much a victim of the Mad King as anyone.”

Robert looks darkly at them all. “If this goes wrong,” he says, his eyes lingering on each and every face, “I will hold you all accountable.” He turns on his heel, and is out the door before Sansa can so much as blink. She takes a deep breath, and looks down to see her hands shaking.

Stannis steps toward her. “Thank you,” he says gruffly after a moment of them looking at one another. Drained, Sansa nods at him, and after a moment of consideration, takes a seat at the head of the table. Everyone looks at her for a long moment, but nobody objects.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa takes her opportunity that very night. Robert has come to her chambers again - it doesn’t escape her notice that it’s becoming an almost nightly ritual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I was a bit stuck about how Sansei would get Robert to give up the goodies (the goodies being Dragonstone) so I went to have a bath. Inspiration struck whilst in the bath, so this entire chapter was written on my iPod in the Notes app. I suffer for my craft.

Sansa takes her opportunity that very night. Robert has come to her chambers again - it doesn’t escape her notice that it’s becoming an almost nightly ritual. He slips in after supper, fucks her or makes love to her, depending on his mood, they talk for a bit and he leaves. If she already wasn’t pregnant, and visibly so at that, she would assume he was coming solely to get an heir.

The other option is that he has actually grown to enjoy her company. Or Cersei’s body. But Sansa doubts that Cersei and Robert had these nightly rendezvous after what she had seen of the state of their marriage.

Whatever it is that drives Robert into her arms night after night, Sansa doesn’t take it for granted - whilst she can’t bother Robert too much with ‘kinging’, as he calls it, for fear he will cease visiting, she can be sure that it puts him in a good mood. A little suggestion here, a stroke of the ego there, and he’s a little more open to what she has to say than he was before.

That night, Robert comes and fucks her hard and fast. He is still angry, furious in fact, and it appears that her body will be taking the fury that she managed to deflect from Stannis. Still, despite the brutality, Sansa puts on a good show - he likes it when he thinks he’s brought her to climax, even though he puts little effort into her own pleasure.

When he’s come with a groan, she mimics the quick little breaths and mewlings that the spearwives at the Wall used to make when they came. Unlike her, she thinks sourly, if they didn’t come they would tell their partner and often leave mid-act to find a better skilled bedfellow.

Tragically, Sansa is a kneeler, in more ways that one; she is essentially Robert’s property, and she knows the penalties for unfaithfulness all too well. Not that she has time to be unfaithful, either way - she has a world to save, and if doing so involves never quite getting what the fuss was about, she’d make the sacrifice gladly.

She keens low and long, deciding that Robert has enjoyed the performance for long enough, and lets her body collapse with exhaustion onto the silk sheets.

“Cersei,” the king groans, pulling her body to him in one rough movement. It’s takes Sansa a moment to realise exactly why she’s so surprised by his words - he’s never said her name before in the throes of passion. It has always been Lyanna. Lyanna or silence.

Now, she tells herself, you can have no better sign.

“My love,” she says to his strong chest, peppering kisses across his collarbone, “you are so good to me.”

Robert squeezes her breast, and a shoot of something hot goes from her nipple to her stomach. She shivers, and stamps it down. “Damn right,” he mutters.

His eyes close, but Sansa knows he isn’t actually in any danger of sleeping by the way his large palm keeps rhythmically massaging her teat.

Sansa takes hold of his wandering digit and guides it down to her belly, where their child has just awoken - thank the gods, she had passed water before they began, else she might have had to get out of bed and ruin the moment. Robert’s eyes flicker open, and he grins at the movement. “Hello son,” he says in a low voice, “you know when your papa is here, don’t you?”

His eyes are glittering in the candlelight, and for a moment, Sansa wonders if this is how Robert was once with Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen, when they were still bumps on Cersei’s belly. She doubts it.

“I would do anything for our son,” Sansa says in a low voice, fighting down a flinch at _s_ _on_. Robert _wants_ a son, _needs_ a son, as all men do, and Sansa must use their unborn child to get what she needs. She doubts Robert would be as willing to give Dragonstone over to a princess as he would a prince. And he must agree.

“I know,” Robert says, tickling their child through her skin. He spasms, and Sansa manages not to exclaim as a tiny limb kicks at her bladder. Robert, thankfully, doesn’t notice her discomfort. This has to be perfect. Perfect.

“Would you?” Sansa asks, her voice lower.

Robert’s head snap up to look at her. Sansa doesn’t blink and after a few moments, her eyes begin to water. His expression softens at his feeble little wife’s weakness, as she’d known it would. “I would do anything,” he swears, reaching up to wipe the moistness from her cheeks, “anything at all. You are carrying my heir, Cersei. There is nothing I would not do for them.”

Sansa smiles a little, and wipes the rest of her tears away. “I just... I heard a terrible rumour, Robert. That you...” She looks down, feigning shyness. “It’s foolish,” she shakes her head, “I was foolish to believe it.”

Robert’s brows knit together. “What did you hear?”

“An outlandish piece of gossip,” Sansa says, “I should never have doubted your devotion to our child-“

“Cersei.” The growl in his tone is barely disguised. _Yes_ , Sansa rejoices, _I have him._

“The servants talk...” she says with a convincing sniff, “I heard that you were thinking of giving- of giving Dragonstone to Stannis. The seat of the heir to the Iron Throne to your _brother_ , not your son. I was afraid that you didn’t see your son - our son - as your true heir-“

Robert actually surprises her then. He reaches up, and instead of taking her face in his grip as he and Tywin Lannister both have done beforehand, he smooths her hair down. The sensation is lovely. “I won’t say there are no truth in these rumours,” Robert says gruffly, “but not because I prefer Stannis over you, my lady. I considered it a reward for Stannis for his failure to catch the Targaryens, considering how he covets Storm’s End like a magpie. I only first spoke to Jon about it this evening - I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that word has already spread. The old man warns me often enough that the walls have ears.”

Sansa makes her lip wobble. “So our son will not have Dragonstone?”

“Oh Cersei,” Robert says, “the idea is discarded from my mind already. Our son will have Dragonstone, I promise you. Stannis can have Storm’s End, for what little he deserves it.”

Real tears rise up in Sansa’s throat then, and without thinking she reaches up and gives Robert a deep kiss, trying to confer all her gratitude through it. When she pulls away, Robert is pink in the cheeks, and bashfulness makes him look years younger.

He moves to leave the bed, but Sansa catches his wrist. He turns back to her with a question in his eyes. “Stay with me?” She asks.

Wordlessly, he gets back under the covers, and Sansa cuddles up to his side contentedly, resting her head over his heart. As sleep begins to grips her, she feels a warm hand stroking her belly.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of a filler chapter to move time along, but also to focus on Robert's changing character. We're essentially covering about two months in this chapter, in order to speed along Sansei's pregnancy and bring the Kingsguard Tourney a bit closer. Hope you all like it, and thank you so much as always for your wonderful reviews! Every single one inspires and motivates me to keep writing.

What she had told Stannis all those months ago had been true - had perhaps been the only wholly true thing she has said in this world, save only her promise to Jon, which nobody but her knows of. She and Robert will never be friends. The power imbalance is too great; he is a man, a king, her husband, her owner - and for all the ways she can manipulate him, all the ways she can change his mind and influence his decisions, they are all still _his_ decisions.

If one day, he decides that he is sick of being told what to do, he can just ignore her and do whatever he pleases, and she will not be able to do anything about it. He can change his mind right back, and give Dragonstone to Stannis, send assassins after the Targaryen children, fuck as many whores as he desires. Not even Tywin Lannister can really influence a king - hasn’t that already been proven beyond doubt with Aerys? With _Joffrey?_

They will never be friends. Never have that easy companionship that Ned Stark and Catelyn Tully managed to cultivate, on relatively even ground - for all that her father was the Warden of the North, her mother was the eldest daughter of another great lord. They needed each other.

What her parents have- _had_ , they’re probably still not speaking, and oh how that thought tears at her heart - is a rare thing indeed. Sansa hadn’t realised how rare the first time around. They didn’t just love each other, bound together by children and a shared sense of purpose, but they _liked_ each other. Sansa hadn’t liked fat king Robert, she had thought he was a lecher who was cruel to her beloved Joffrey in life, who was too loud and drunk and boisterous. In death, she had hated him for leaving the kingdoms to the Lannisters, if she had thought of him at all.

She and Robert will never be friends. She knows this, knows it very well, so why is it that she finds her eyes sliding over to him at mealtimes, why does her heart jump in her chest when he squeezes her hand? He says her name at night now. It’s ridiculous that it should mean anything to her - it is not even her name, for god’s sake. “Cersei,” he groans as he holds her close to him, “Cersei.”

He hasn’t called her Lyanna in moons.

It starts to carry over into the daytime as well - as she dresses her, Briony giggles that the king can’t seem to stay away from her. She can’t say anything because it’s true. If she’s leaving the keep to visit her sponsored orphanages, Robert will usually accompany her and play with the children whilst she pays for their care. When she prays in the sept, Robert appears minutes later, kneels in front of the Warrior for a few moments, before coming over to her side - even if she is kneeling before the Stranger. Not even Briony, her closest friend and confidante, will join her there.

He even puts in a few token appearances at small council meetings - those had shocked her the most. He rarely stays for the full session, simply nodding along to Sansa’s ideas keeping her at his right hand when he takes what is usually her seat at the head of the table. Robert dislikes kinging, as he has made perfectly clear, but he signs a few things that she foists upon him, sealing them with his new signet ring - a crowned stag. On Cersei’s nameday - which had truly snuck up upon her, as she had never known the exact date, the queen not liking many to know of her aging - he presents her with her own seal. A crowned lion. The thoughtfulness of the gift is utterly blindsiding.

“You may as well have your own,” he shrugs when she looks up at him, a question in her eyes, “you’ll use the damned thing more than I do.”

She and Robert will never be friends. She has to keep reminding herself.

But when he spends so much of his time with her - when he starts to talk to her, not at or around her, when Jon Arryn doesn’t even have to be in the room to prompt him to start a conversation, she almost tricks herself that they could be. She feels herself growing fond of him, of the way he throws himself wholeheartedly into the planning of the Kingsguard tourney, of how he and Stannis still bicker like children but he never lets it get as personal as it did before. She’s eight moons round now, and Robert sleeps in her bed most nights, visiting all the time.

“I love you,” he says to her sleepily as he comes inside her her, his hand on her belly as warm as an oven.

Sansa cannot fight down the relief she feels when he falls asleep before she has to say it back.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the things that Sansa has planned for in the last year of her life as Cersei, nothing has really caught her totally off guard, except perhaps Stannis’ keen eyes on her makeup, and Robert’s birthday gift. Both times, she had recovered within a matter of minutes.
> 
> However, her confinement was a shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys and your reviews are honestly making my life right now - thank you so much, and please keep them coming! They fuel me, like dinosaurs fuel cars. Betcha never thought of it like that before.

Of all the things that Sansa has planned for in the last year of her life as Cersei, nothing has really caught her totally off guard, except perhaps Stannis’ keen eyes on her makeup, and Robert’s birthday gift. Both times, she had recovered within a matter of minutes.

However, her confinement was a shock. Her mother had never had a confinement - often, she’d be walking around Winterfell normally the day before giving birth, and be up again within a week or so. But her mother was not the queen of the seven kingdoms, and was not carrying the king’s heir.

When Pycelle tells her she is expected to stay in the Maidenvault for the remainder of her pregnancy after her daily checkup, Sansa is about ready to riot. “This is ridiculous,” she tells the Grandmaester, standing up from the examination bed, “I have too much to do. The Kingsguard tourney is barely a moon away, and hardly anything is organized-”

“The hand’s orders were quite clear,” Pycelle tells her apologetically, bowing low enough that she can see the speckled bald spot on the top of his wrinkled scalp.

So here she is, stuck in her bed, doing absolutely  _ nothing. _ “This is ridiculous,” she complains to Briony for what must be the fiftieth time in under an hour. She knows she’s sulking, not unlike a spoiled child who can’t get her own way, but that won’t stop her. She’s annoyed, damn it - there is so much for her to  _ do  _ right now, and instead she is swaddled in her bedclothes like a helpless infant.

“Yes, your grace,” Briony responds, not even looking up from where she is arranging a bouquet of wildflowers at Sansa’s desk. Sansa’s desk that is piled high with requests, ledgers, permissions and appeals that she  _ needs  _ to sign, read and reject. She sighs. Apparently in her confinement, she can’t even tax her  _ mind  _ for fear of the baby coming too early. 

“Briony,” Sansa wheedles, “the hand doesn’t have to know if I just  _ look over  _ some of my-”

Her maid grimaces in concern. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, my lady. The hand said-”

“The hand,” Sansa says with a pinched expression, “is overly cautious because of his own experiences with wives and childbirth. I’m sure no other lady in the Seven Kingdoms has to undergo such extremes-”

“Your grace,” Briony says with a sigh, “I can’t give you the papers. The hand’s orders are backed up by the king. I wish I could help you, I do, but I want to stay in your service more.”

Sansa grimaces, but decides it isn’t fair of her to torture Briony too much. “But what am I supposed to  _ do  _ for a whole month?” She wails, “I can’t walk, I can’t attend small council meetings, I can’t eat with the rest of the castle, I can’t even read my own papers!”

“There are other things than just work,” Briony reminds her, abandoning her vase to come and sit at Sansa’s side. She takes Cersei’s pale hand in her own tanned palm. “Maybe this will be a blessing in disguise, your grace. Like a little holiday. You can have visitors - I’m sure many of the ladies of the court would be honoured to be by your side, as well as your brother, and the king. You can read things that won’t tax you overly much - like stories and suchlike. You can still embroider, and have singers, and maybe you could teach yourself a new skill-”

Absentmindedly, Sansa squeezes her friend’s hand. It doesn’t escape her notice that everything Briony has just described would have been a dream come true to her younger self, who had no measure of duty or hard work, only fun and tourneys and true knights. “It makes me feel so useless,” she complains, “like I am little more than a child to be distracted.”

“Oh Cersei…” Briony says, and Sansa cannot help but notice that is the first time that Briony has called her by her name, and her name alone. “You need to give yourself a break,” her maid continues, obviously not noticing her own slip into informality. Sansa certainly won’t be the one to point it out, from fear that she’ll never do it again. “You have been running the keep almost single handedly, I know, but it won’t fall apart when you’re away. You’re still doing something useful, my lady, you are doing what no one else can - bringing the king’s true heir into the world. Won’t it be worth it when you are holding your child in your arms?”

_ Maybe,  _ Sansa wants to say,  _ maybe it will and maybe it won’t. It all depends on which child I deliver. _

“You’re right of course,” Sansa says instead, smiling falsely at Briony, “I’m getting worked up over nothing. And I suppose the small council can manage without me for a moon. Seven knows they need to get their act together sooner or later. And I can practice my embroidery a little more…” 

Without warning, a hot tear slips down her cheek. Briony, who hadn’t looked fooled at the fake smile, takes her into her arms. Why, Sansa wonders, did she keep on crying for no good reason? “I’m sorry,” she hiccuped into Briony’s dampening sleeve, “I don’t know why it upsets me so. I’m being stupid - it’s not like anything bad is happening, I’m just on  _ bed rest _ -” At the reminder, another sob comes to the surface.

“You feel like something is being taken from you,” Briony says, stroking her hair the way she likes, “there’s nothing stupid about that.”

She can’t say how long they are like that, bent over one another until Sansa finally feels strong enough to extract herself from Briony’s gentle hold. “Shall I see if I can find you a visitor?” Briony asks, “Someone to cheer you up?”

Sansa’s first instinct is to say  _ no, no one can see me like this _ , laid out and helpless like an invalid. But she wipes away the remnants of her tears, and nods. “Could you- could you fetch-” She wonders who it would be safest for her to see right now, who would be the most useful for at least lightening her sentence. Not Robert, definitely not - she can’t help the feeling that he has betrayed her by bowing to his hand’s demands, for all that he probably had the best of intentions. Although… what if he takes advantage of her absence, and visits whores? What if he just wants her out the way, so he can go back to his philandering ways? The thought cuts at her deeper than she would like to admit. She pushes it away. What does she care what he does?

Not the hand - for similar reasons. If she sees Jon Arryn, she can’t imagine she’ll be very courteous towards him, considering he has trapped her in her chambers for the foreseeable future. But maybe…

“Fetch Lysa Arryn,” she tells Briony, whose face shows no surprise at the name she has given, “we have much to discuss.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Sansa hadn’t known that her bulbous aunt and the slip of a girl before her now are in fact the same person, she wouldn’t have believed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, all! As always, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your wonderful reviews. One commenter said that they like checking their email to a new chapter - I do the exact same with the reviews. Usually I'll publish, leave the laptop for about an hour, and come back to a very enjoyable crop of feedback. 
> 
> Also, I was procrastinating yesterday, and ended up making a moodboard for this story on Pinterest. If you're interested, the link is [here](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/emilymayescott/no-matter-how-bright-a-torch-may-burn-moodboard/)

If Sansa hadn’t known that her bulbous aunt and the slip of a girl before her now are in fact the same person, she wouldn’t have believed it. This girl - this girl is thinner than Sansa remembers her being several months before, instead of ballooning like her future self, her blue eyes - an exact copy of her own dear mother’s shade and shape - not knowing where in the room to look. Her red hair is scraped back into a high bun, and it makes her face look sharp and hollow.

“Your grace,” she says for what must be the fourth time in that breathy, nervous voice that Sansa wishes she didn’t recognise. She links and unlinks her fingers, the twitchy movement not quite disguised by the long sleeves of her blue dress.

“Sit down, Lady Arryn,” Sansa says from her bed, and after the girl looks around for a chair for a moment and finding none, she uneasily perches on the very edge of Sansa’s bed. “I apologise I have not summoned you sooner,” Sansa continues, “but I’ve been so very busy. But now your dear husband-” Lysa flinches at the reminder of exactly to whom she is wed, “has so thoughtfully placed me on bedrest, I thought we would have plenty of time to get to know one another.”

The smile Lysa conjures up looks like it physically pains her. “Of course your grace,” she says in that same fluttery, false voice, “I am honoured.”

“Please,” Sansa says, “call me Cersei.”

“Cersei,” Lysa repeats, blinking. “Then you can… please call me Lysa.”

“Lysa,” Sansa beams at her, “I think it best that we are friends. You and I… we need one another.”

Lysa looks rather unsure of that. Sansa fights down a frustrated sigh as she sees the cogs turning slowly in the young woman’s brain. “Your- Cersei, I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

“We are women, dear Lysa,” Sansa tells her, reaching out to take her fidgeting hand in her own. Her hand is incredibly cold, like ice. “Women in a world built for and by men. That alone would unite us, but our husbands are almost father and son. Maybe we could too be as close as sisters, given time.”

Something inscrutable passes behind Lysa’s blue gaze. Sansa wonders if she is thinking of the sister she already has. But when Lysa next speaks, she cannot hear the all-too-familiar hiss of jealousy, only sadness. “I do not think I am quite the lady your grace-”

“Cersei,” Sansa reminds her lightly.

“Cersei,” Lysa repeats, swallowing, “you should know before you waste time trying… trying to use me to know what my husband is doing. He doesn’t tell me anything, we barely talk- he’s old enough to be my  _ grandfather _ !”

The emotion in Lysa’s eyes is clear now. Fear. Sansa berates herself for carrying over her prejudices - for all that Aunt Lysa of the future had been terrible, jealous, cruel and possessive, this was just Lysa Arryn - barely flowered, lost, lonely. “I didn’t call you here to ask about your husband,” Sansa comforts, allowing Lysa’s hand to slip out of her own as the younger girl goes back to twisting her fingers together, “I meant what I said. I want us to be friends. Not because of who your husband is, but because of you.”

Lysa looks at her for a long moment, looking for signs of dishonesty. She won’t find them. Sansa has become a very adept liar over the years. In a way she is being at least partly truthful; she doesn’t want Lysa for a way to Jon Arryn, at least not primarily. She wants to have her confidence, so she knows when Petyr makes his move; it must have been so easy, she thinks as she looks at the almost shattered lady before her. A kind word here, and gentle touch there, and Lysa was his creature body and soul. Not for the first time, she wonders if he had ever felt any regret, any guilt. No, she thinks, probably not. Littlefinger was not the type.

She has passed Lysa’s test, she sees it in the girl’s eyes. They are expressive, so much more readable than her own mother’s. She had thought them identical, but now she knows better; her mother had been strong, like iron and ice - Lysa is driftwood, worn away and breakable. 

“I would like a friend,” Lysa says in a small voice.

_ Yes _ , Sansa thinks,  _ you would, wouldn’t you? _ She wonders if Lysa has ever had a friend. She had her sister, Sansa’s mother, but that was family. Family is different to friendship. She should know that better than anyone, for how desperately she loves and still loves Arya, but never truly understood her. Petyr was not a friend - no, Petyr was a parasite. 

She has every intention of being a friend - a good friend - to Lysa. She has nothing to lose through sympathy, through little jokes and small talk, through listening and softening and learning. Nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

“So would I,” Sansa says, and smiles.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If anything happens to me-” Sansa finds herself saying, the words spilling from her lips without her permission, “you must look after my child. Robert means well, but he doesn’t know anything about children beyond how to father them-”
> 
> “Nothing will happen,” Briony tells her passionately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go guys, the big one. Sansei's giving birth. This chapter (and the ones following) are going to be posted a bit later than they have been recently, simply because it's no longer half term and I'm back and college. I still mean to post every day, but I'll be posting after college, not whenever I want.
> 
> Hope you like it, and tell me what you're thinking via baby names!

She’s been awaiting labour for over a month when it finally comes, and she doesn’t grasp what exactly is happening to her at first. Gerion and Tyrion were visiting her - Tyrion was telling her about some puppeteers which had set up their tent just outside the Red Keep. Her brother-husband tells her animatedly about the sketches - Mad Aerys deciding he wanted to wear a dress, Maegor the Cruel collecting wives like most men collected hunting trophies, the Dance of the Dragons and the inconclusive, unsatisfying end where both claimants died at the end, leaving a child prince to rule.

He even starts to tell of the fourth act, where a silver prince passed over his lady wife for a northern girl, but that’s when Gerion urges him to stop. When he’s tired of his stories, Tyrion usually goes over to Briony, who is very good at entertaining him - they talk about what books they’ve read, what they thought of the characters and so on.

“Public opinion is shifting,” Gerion tells her, his laughing eyes almost serious as he speaks in low tones, “Robert is no longer the usurper to most. The puppet show is not the first of its kind, and it will not be the last; the Targaryen’s supporters grow quieter by the day. I don’t think we will hear much more of the Beggar King and his sister across the sea.”

_Not for a while,_ Sansa thinks, _not for years yet._ “That’s good,” she tells him, thinking, “we should be seen to sponsor these messages. Give the puppeteers some gold dragons, say the king approves of their show. Do the same for any singers who put us in a good light. Three hundred years of dominance will take a while to be washed away, but washed away they must be. Peace can only remain if the Seven Kingdoms are united under the same banner.”

Gerion nods his head, and his eyes flash over to where Tyrion is waving his arms around wildly as he explains some plot to Briony. “He’s a different boy, now,” Cersei’s uncle says quietly, “and all for the better. I think he has finally stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. You have done well with him.”

“I hope so,” Sansa says, “I-” she cuts herself off as a sudden warmth spreads through her body. She stares, and the sheets that Gerion is sitting on suddenly become damp. She’s humiliated. How could she have wet the bed, like some incontinent infant? Her horror shows on her face, and Gerion follows her gaze. He springs up, drawing attention from Briony and Tyrion.

“My lord?” Briony says, standing up. Sansa’s face is on fire, and to her horror tears of humiliation are gathering behind her eyes. After a moment of Gerion speechlessly opening and closing his mouth, Briony’s eyes fall on the spreading patch of wetness. She is the first one to understand. “Tyrion,” she says, turning to the dwarf, “I need you to run and fetch the Grandmaester, as quick as you can. Tell him it's time.”

Tyrion is already out the room by the time Sansa’s damnably slow mind connects the dots. It’s time. She’s been praying for the babe to come for over two weeks now, she feels so like a beached whale, but suddenly a paralysing thrill of fear runs through her. It's time. Briony has thankfully not waited for Sansa to panic. “You must go to the king,” she says to Gerion, pressing a red handkerchief into his hand. That was the signal, Sansa remembers, so that Robert could know as quickly as possible, even if he was in a crowd. A red handkerchief. One that she had embroidered herself, on her enforced bedrest - a charging stag in thread of gold. Seeing it clenched in Gerion’s tanned fist makes it all too real.

Then it is just her and Briony. “If anything happens to me-” Sansa finds herself saying, the words spilling from her lips without her permission, “you must look after my child. Robert means well, but he doesn’t know anything about children beyond how to father them-”

“Nothing will happen,” Briony tells her passionately as she strips the wet sheets away, Sansa lying in the middle. At least, she thinks, she didn’t wet herself. That had been a horrible thought, one she didn’t think her pride would ever have recovered from. “Women everywhere survive this every day, and with far less help than you’ll have. You will be fine, Cersei.”

“Still,” Sansa says, and their eyes lock. An understanding passes together.

“I will care for your child as if they were my own,” Briony says. Sansa can suddenly breathe a bit easier. Cersei had survived three children with no problems, she thinks, at least no problems that she knew of. But this was not the same child - Jaime had been gone for a year now, and Baratheons were _big._ Bran had been a big baby, she remembers, and mother had been on the edge of life and death for weeks after.

She can’t die, not yet, she has too much to do, too much to change-

It’s for the best that Robert bursts in in that moment. “The baby?” He pants, red in the face. He must have sprinted the whole way, and Sansa can see a scrap of red fabric in his large fist.

“There’s nothing to worry about, love,” Sansa tells him, even as she can feel a dull ache beginning deep inside her. “Our child is coming-” She cuts herself off with a groan of pain as something sharply contracts inside her, and Robert’s face goes white.

“Where is fucking Pycelle?” he snaps at Briony, and he marches over to the bedside, crushing the wet sheets underfoot as he begins to pace. “Useless man. If you could dismisss the fucking grandmaester-”

“Robert,” she says with a breath, and he falls silent. “There is nothing you can do here. Please, go and- go and keep the court calm. We don’t want anyone to panic.” _Like we two are panicking._

“I- I’ll go on a hunt,” he mutters to himself, “get away-”

“No,” she growls, feeling more like a wild animal than she has in years, “you are not leaving the castle, do you hear? You need to be _here_ . _I_ need you _here_.”

He swallows. “I’ll- I’ll go let everyone know what’s going on.”

Sansa’s nostrils flare as she forces herself to breathe deeply, and the door opens, and Pycelle has finally arrived. “Your grace!” he exclaims at her glare, hobbling over to her side, “How long has it been since your waters broke?”

“Twenty minutes?” Sansa hazards a guess in between pants, and Briony confirms it with a nod.

“Any contractions?”

Sansa nods mutely, her lips in a thin line of pain.

“Alright,” the Grandmaester says, ringing his hands, “alright. I need some warm water, cotton, a tape measure, forceps-”

Wide eyed, Robert all but sprints out of the room.

The next few hours are a world of pain unlike any Sansa has ever known. She’s known cold so biting and burning that her fingers have turned black, known humiliation and scorn. She’s known the feeling of steel biting into the soft skin of her neck, and what it is to be burned in the fires of R'hllor. But this pain - it is new, and terrible. Her baby is squirming, kicking, punching at her insides as her contractions grow shorter and shorter. She screams and screams, and it doesn’t end. Something down below tears, and she weeps like a wounded animal. There is so much blood, and the faces above her change as the room grows dark and then light again. She is being torn apart, she is dying, she is dying, this must be death, this must be it, this must be the end, she will be another story of a tragic death in childbed, a life snuffed out too soon-

“Push!” Pycelle urges, and she hates the man, and his hands on her. “Push!” he commands again, as if he has any right to order a queen.  “Push!” Briony tells her, and she is trying, she is trying so hard, but it hurts, she has no strength, she is empty, she is run out, and the child is still kicking and punching at her, still-

A mewling screech. An emptying sensation. Her head falls back on her pillow, exhausted, and she can see something blurry in front of her, something red and wriggling and screaming.

“You did it,” Briony tells her, and lays a kiss on her filthy, tear soaked cheeks. “You did it.”

Then there is a warm thing, hairless and big eyed, with a purple cord stretching from its belly button to somewhere she cannot see, and four flailing limbs. Blood, and other fluids she doesn’t want to think about, coat it’s skin like a second layer.

“Your grace,” Pycelle says tiredly, proudly, “you have a daughter.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It would have been so much easier,” she says to her pinkish, squirming bundle, “if you had been born a boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been reading all your suggestions in the last day, and came to a decision on the baby's name! Among my favourite names were Jocelyn, Cassana (which I've already used in a lot of fics), Joanna and I really liked the suggestion of Arya, despite how little sense it would make, considering it's a Stark name, and neither Robert or Cersei are Starks (or so the world thinks), or know anyone called Arya they could claim to be honouring. I'm also very pleased to have had feedback that I described labour well by people who have actually been in labour - I, thankfully, have not yet had to run that particular gauntlet. 
> 
> Tomorrow's chapter may be a little delayed, or not come out at all, for the reason that it's Halloween, and I have plans to get utterly hammered tonight. Hangovers are not great for writing, but hopefully it'll all proceed as usually. If it doesn't... just imagine me in a darkened room, with a killer headache. Hope you like it, as always, and have a happy Halloween!

“It would have been so much easier,” she says to her pinkish, squirming bundle, “if you had been born a boy.”

The gore has been wiped off her little girl now - washed in rose water and swaddled in a woolen blanket, she is much less of a horror to look upon. Sansa can’t remember seeing Bran, Rickon nor Arya as newborns - only the chubby, soft babies they were afterward. Pycelle told her that the child would gain some beauty in the coming weeks, not to worry about the reddish tint to the skin, or the veins that seemed far too clear through it.

Despite all that, however, Sansa looks at her daughter and sees something of herself in her. Her eyes are round like almonds, as deep and as blue as the sea, not the flicked cat eyes of Cersei, nor the arresting blue of Robert. Maybe, she thinks, this could be my child after all. She pictures her face - her real face, the one that is little more than a watercolour palette of blues and reds, and puts her daughter’s eyes into the image. It looks right.

Her nose is Robert’s - it is flat, but not out of proportion, and her mouth is plump like Cersei’s. She has a strawberry birthmark on her inner thigh, that Sansa fancies is in the shape of a wonky loveheart.

She loves her daughter. The thought both scares and stupefies her. She tries it out again - she loves her daughter. It’s true. Dear gods, it’s true. She remembers Cersei, the real Cersei, on the morning she had flowered - _love only your children,_ the Queen had told her, _in that you have no choice._

She tries to imagine Cersei laying where she is now, with a baby Joffrey in her arms, feeling the strength of the emotions she is right now. The very thought makes Sansa wants to shiver with revulsion. But her daughter - her daughter is not Joffrey. She will never give birth to Joffrey; Joffrey will never exist. Her daughter is hers, her daughter is trueborn, a Baratheon, a princess. Her daughter and Cersei’s daughter and Robert’s daughter all at once.

“I love you,” she whispers to the baby, who doesn’t seem to think much of her declaration, letting out a tiny yawn. She says it again, and it is as true, as right as it was the first time. This is not like anything she’s known before - she has loved men, loved women, loved her brothers and sister, loved her parents and her home. But none of that love, none of it, was quite like this. She would have died for her family - did, in the end, die for them.

But she would kill for her daughter. Without hesitation, without a second thought.

It’s a fairly terrifying thought. Even more so that one day, in this nest of vipers, she may have to. There is a knock on the door, and she tightens her grip on her daughter without thinking. “Come in,” she calls, knowing logically that she probably has an army of guards outside her door right now.

The door swings open, and Robert has to stoop to get through the doorway, a look of hesitation unlike any she has seen on his face before. It is, she thinks wryly, a day of new things for the both of them. Oh, Robert has had children before, even has her friend Mya Stone back in the Vale as his first daughter, but this is his first trueborn child.

“My lady,” he says, and his eyes fall to her precious cargo. “Is that…”

 _Of course it is,_ she wants to tease him, but the words stick in her throat. Robert right now is an unknown quantity to her - he had been expecting a son. She had negotiated Dragonstone for their son. But they had no son, only a daughter. “This is your daughter, my lord,” she says, trying to sound as if her stomach is not tying itself in knots. After a beat, she holds out the baby like an offering.

Robert doesn’t hesitate, holding the babe in his arms with practiced ease. “Hello,” he says gently, in a voice Sansa hasn’t heard from him before, “I’m your dada.” The knots inside Sansa ease at the softness in his tone.

“She’s beautiful,” he comments, and Sansa realises that she’s expected to answer him.

“She is,” she agrees, “and next time I will give you a son.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Robert says, and he sounds surer than Sansa feels. She looks at him with a question in her eyes. “You think I don’t know you,” he tells her, “but I know you well enough to know you won’t rest until we have a prince. I am in no rush. Today, you have given me a princess, who is healthy and strong. In a year or two, a prince. For all Jon harps on about securing my line, a daughter will do just as well as a son. We have time.”

Sansa ignores the way her heart is thumping in her chest.

“She is beautiful,” she says, and Robert seems to understand she doesn’t want to linger on the prospect of the future right now, “worth all the pain.”

“I was thinking,” Robert says, as he holds their little girl close to his broad chest, “for a name…”

 _Do not say Lyanna,_ Sansa wills him, _do not ruin this moment._

“...Eddara. If you approve.”

Sansa lets out a breath of relief. “I suppose you want to repay Ned Stark the favour of naming your firstborn after him?”

Robert colours. “Something like that. My lady, if you don’t like it, there are other names - Cassana, Jocelyn, Joanna, for your own lady mother-”

“I like Eddara,” Sansa says softly. She had dreamed once, a hundred years ago, that she would have sons she would name Robb and Rickon and Brandon and Ned. “I like it very much.”

A beatific smile breaks out on Robert’s face, and for a moment, it looks like the sun has broken through the clouds. “Then Eddara it is,” he says decisively, and puts the baby’s ear to his mouth. “Eddara,” he hums to her, almost a prayer, “Eddara, Eddara, Eddara.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She is well formed, at least,” Tywin Lannister comments as he holds his first grandchild in his liver spotted hands. “And it is good you have given the king a babe with his look.”
> 
> Sansa nods, knowing that it is more than good, compared to what almost was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, I did go out last night, I did get drunk, but not so drunk I had a hangover today, so here's your chapter! The next couple of days may waver a bit in updating times, because I'm going to have an interview for my first choice (and only choice, lol, because I like to stress myself out) uni on Friday, and Thursday is mainly going to be a travelling day. I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

“She is well formed, at least,” Tywin Lannister comments as he holds his first grandchild in his liver spotted hands. “And it is good you have given the king a babe with his look.”

Sansa nods, knowing that it is more than good, compared to what almost was. 

And Edda is undeniably her father’s daughter - she is not yet two weeks old, but already fine dark hairs are growing to form a dark cap of hair. She mewls, and Tywin passes her back to Sansa without any complaint. Sansa wonders how often he held his own children in their childhood - not often, she would wager. He relaxes once the princess is safely back in Sansa’s arms.

“It would have been best if you had given Robert a son,” he tells her condescendingly, as if Sansa doesn’t know that very well. “But for now, a girl is good enough. It has proven your fertility, at least. Barely a year married and already a child to show for it. Rhaella was not so favoured.”

Yes, Sansa knows the stories of what the late queen endured very well. She can’t not hear them, not now that Edda’s birth appears to have unleashed a tidal wave of memories for the Red Keep. “I will give him a son soon,” she tells him, her standard answer when questioned about when a prince would be forthcoming. She’ll still breastfeed for a few moons yet, for as much as Edda had been worth all the pain, her body needed time to heal. 

Robert had, when informed by Pycelle that his lady wife wouldn’t be cleared for marital pursuits for a moons yet, slunk into Chataya’s whorehouse with what he probably thought was subtlety. For the first few nights, humours unbalanced and heart heavy, Sansa had wept at the empty space in her bed - Briony must have heard her, because the next night she came to Cersei’s bed without a word, and stayed until morning.

“You are too good to me,” she told her maid when she woke up warm in the morning, Edda under the care of a wet nurse to allow them both a full night’s sleep. Briony had waved her away, but Sansa knew that the comment had touched her.

Sansa had never been under any misconceptions that Robert was a fairtytale prince from the songs, so she doesn’t understand why knowing he is going to other women - thankfully doing so quietly - is such a knife in her heart. But she has Edda, and Briony, and Tyrion who is Edda’s ever watchful protector, and even Stannis has been visiting of late to see his niece. When she first had come to the Red Keep, she was friendless. Now, she is anything but.

“She is strong enough to come to the tourney?” Tywin asks, his question pulling Sansa back to the present. She blinks, and remembers herself.

“Yes.” she says, waving away his concerns, “she’s as hale and hearty as they come. It will do the people good, to see their princess.”

Tywin nods so shallowly that Sansa almost misses it. “Your brother is keen to meet her,” he says, sacrificing a finger to Edda’s grasping hands. 

“J-Jaime?” Sansa stumbles over the name, “Jaime’s here?!” The name, the memories, are a shock to her placid contentment.

“He said he’d written to tell you he was coming,” Tywin looks at her sternly.

“I- I must not have read his letter thoroughly,” Sansa says, and laughs strangely. The sound gets caught in her throat, and sounds like a hiccup. Of course, she wouldn’t know. She gave the order months ago that any letters from Jaime were to be burned. “Where is he? I’ve- I’ve missed him. Tyrion asks about him a lot, as well. I should see him.” At the unimpressed look on the Warden of the West’s face, she tacks on lamely “We are family, after all.” 

She is trying to force her mind to work, but it is like she is sunk in quicksand. Why didn’t she know? How could she not have been told? She is meant to know the keep inside out, know everyone who is coming and going - how could she have missed a name like Jaime Lannister? 

“Hmm,” Tywin says, his expression telling her that he knows she is hiding something, but he seems to know better than to press. “Talk some sense into him, won’t you?”

Sansa’s throat is full of sand. “Of course, father.”

This is what she gets for letting her guard down.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t go looking for Jaime - she doesn’t have to. She knows he’ll come to her. Knows that Jaime and Cersei, even when she had known them to be nothing more than twins, came together without effort. She remembers the way Cersei would screech and rant and rave, cursing Robb’s name - her brother had stolen Cersei’s, or so the queen saw it.
> 
> And now, Sansa thinks dully, I have stolen Cersei from Jaime. They had ripped the country apart before to be together, why had she been so arrogant that they wouldn’t do it twice?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for their patience - my interview was very, very scary, and I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to get in or not, as they seemed to like my answers, but seemed unsure about my health problems, which is incredibly frustrating as it's not something I can control. Either way, here's Jaime. He's almost as frustrated as I am.

She doesn’t go looking for Jaime - she doesn’t have to. She knows he’ll come to her. Knows that Jaime and Cersei, even when she had known them to be nothing more than twins, came together without effort. She remembers the way Cersei would screech and rant and rave, cursing Robb’s name - her brother had stolen Cersei’s, or so the queen saw it. 

And now, Sansa thinks dully, I have stolen Cersei from Jaime. They had ripped the country apart before to be together, why had she been so arrogant that they wouldn’t do it twice?

“Cersei,” a deep voice says her name like a prayer, cutting through the silent night, “ _ Cersei _ .”

She turns, as slow as she dares. For a moment, she stares at the face - so unfamiliar, yet so like her own. Jaime has cut his hair off at the nape of his neck, and let a scraggly beard grow over his face. He is not dressed in white now - but gold. Even now, he is beautiful.

“Send the guards away,” he says hoarsely, “I just want to talk.”

It’s stupid, and foolish, and reckless. But that is who Cersei is, and maybe there’s a bit of Sansa who is all those things as well, even now, even after all the death she has seen and all the darkness she has known. Maybe she and Cersei are one now, united not only through their daughter and in their body, but in soul too. Before she can think better of it, before she can think at all, she turns to her guards and nods. They withdraw silently, until it is only the two of them in the dark palace courtyard.

“Princess Elia used to love this place.” Whatever Sansa had thought Jaime’s opening line would be, she hadn’t been expecting that.

“I can see why,” she says honestly, willing to go along with the conversation as long as it remained harmless, “it is very peaceful.”

“And empty,” the Kingslayer adds, lowering himself onto the bench beside her. “Did you choose it because nobody would be here?”

“Not entirely,” she replies, “I do like it here. The view.” 

“It is less picturesque up close,” Jaime says shortly, and before she can react her takes her hand in his own. 

“Jaime-” she says with a warning.

“Such soft hands,” he says hollowly, “for all the good work I’ve been told you’re doing, you still have such soft hands.”

There is the bitterness that Sansa had been expecting. “You wouldn’t understand,” she says in a low voice, “there is so much depending on me-”

“What would I not understand about that?” the Kingslayer asks, “I have been the heir to the West since birth, the youngest knight in the Seven Kingdoms, I know about being depended on. And even if I had not known - when have we never understood one another?”

The hurt in his voice is an open wound. Sansa turns her head, and looks at him. His green gaze - identical to hers, to Cersei’s - is full of accusation. “We,” she says, tries to say, but the words all seem to desert her, “we are very different people now, Jaime.”

“No,” he says vehemently, raising his voice a little, “no, we are the same.” His hand is on her cheek, and for a moment she expects him to grasp at her like Robert and Tywin and all the other men who seem to think they have a right to her body. But it is soft. Gentle. “We are two halves of a whole,” he tells her, and there is love, such love in his voice. Love that Sansa hadn’t known that Cersei was capable of inspiring. 

“Not anymore,” she tells him, trying to sound firm, catching his wrist and pulling it away from her, “never again. You are free now- I release you from your vows, from your love-”

“You can’t,” he insists, and he is stronger than her, easily crowding her, “you can’t release a man who does not wish to be released. I am yours Cersei-”

“No, you are your own man-”

“I am yours and you are mine,” he says with finality, “that is the way it has always been, the way it will always be. I know you can’t love that lecher, Cersei, how he humiliates you, the mother of his daughter-” Against her will, Sansa’s cheeks heat at the reminder of Robert’s betrayal. The kingslayer, damn him, sees it. “I would never betray you,” he insists, “I never have, even when you have betrayed me.”

“Is it a betrayal?” Sansa whispers, finding her voice cannot grow firm as she needs it to, “A betrayal to stay faithful to my husband’s bed, to honour my king, to love my brother as my brother-”

“I will never love anyone else,” the kingslayer proclaims, “never. No matter how many eligible ladies father throws in my path, I shall never want another. I know you, Cersei. I know you better than you know yourself.”

_ No,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ I promise you, you don’t. _

“I do not love you anymore,” Sansa says instead. Jaime freezes.

“You’re lying,” he breathes after a moment, “you cannot stop loving me as much as I cannot stop loving you.”

“I’m not lying,” Sansa insists, “I love you as a brother. Nothing more. Whatever there was between us, it is gone now. I burned all your letters, Jaime, every last one-”

“No,” the boy says - and he is a boy, as painfully young as she once was - as if in a dream, “no, no, no-” Without warning, he surges forward and kisses her passionately, and to her horror, Sansa can feel Cersei’s lips reciprocating. Filled with disgust, she wrenches herself away, toppling off the bench in her desperation. Her knees crunch against the stone pathway, and she hisses at the pain.

Quiet, so quiet, with only Sansa’s heartbeat in her ears, and then a sob. “What did I do wrong?” The kingslayer’s voice breaks, “Am I too broken for you now? I can change, Cersei, I can change if that’s what you need-”

“No,” Sansa whispers, before she can think better of it, “no, it’s nothing to do with you. It’s me. I am- I am different. I feel differently about everything and everyone. I will always love you, but as my family. And because I love you, you need to get over this. You need to find someone to love who isn’t me.” Whilst they’ve been talking, the sun has disappeared behind the horizon and it takes Sansa a minute to find the kingslayer’s wet cheeks in the darkness. She puts her forehead to his, and ignores the way he trembles at her touch. “Please Jaime. Please. If you love me… if you love me… stop. Stop this.”

In response, he only cries harder, rougher, his body shaking. “You are the only good thing I have,” he says thickly, “the only good thing. Everything else… I don’t sleep at night. They’re all judging me, hating me. Aerys. Rhaegar. Elia. The little children. Oh god, the little children-”

“Shh,” Sansa hushes him automatically before she can think, and pulls him to her so he’s sitting on the pathway as well, weeping in her arms like a child. And he is, she realises. Jaime is barely a kingslayer, barely a knight, barely a man. He is in so many ways, still a child, and in other ways, he will never be a child again. 

“Cersei,” he says her name again, “did you ever love me?”

_ No,  _ Sansa should say. Because she never has. But he is not asking her. He is asking his sister - his sister who did love him, who loved him as a part of herself, fiercely and totally and desperately.

“Yes,” she whispers, “but it was a mistake.” That, at least, is the absolute truth.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've missed a couple of days, and I'm really sorry, but I was quite frankly stuck. I knew I wanted to move onto the kingsguard tourney, but I wasn't quite sure how, so this is a chapter to carry us over into the action of that. I'm glad that you're still reading and enjoying the story, although I can't reply to all your reviews, know that I read them all and appreciate each and every one.

For the first time since she was thrown into the past, into the body of arguably the person she hated most, Sansa feels completely and utterly lost. It’s the kingsguard tourney, which has ended up doubling as a celebration of Edda’s birth, and she doesn’t know what to do. She is in completely unknown territory. None of this - none of this had happened before. Robert and Cersei were still childless, Jaime still a kingsguard, Stannis Lord of Dragonstone and the kingsguard picked practically at random. She should be happy, she is changing things; but she doesn't _know_ how things will go. Not like she knew before.

Her daughter is in her arms, and Sansa cannot completely convince herself she isn’t using her as a human shield. 

It’s a similar setup to the Hand’s tourney - she is sitting on one of two thrones at the head of the jousting field, there are stands rising either side, there are more horses and knights than she would think could fit in a city, even one as large as King’s Landing, and the air is thick with excitement. Beside her, Robert is all but bouncing with excitement, roaring with the crowd as one knight knocks another off his mount. To his right is Jon Arryn, and to Cersei’s left sits Lysa Arryn, whose soft eyes are fixed on the competition with an intensity that she hasn’t yet seen. Not all the competitors are fighting to be part of the kingsguard - they would be offered it if they won, but they have every right to turn it down, and still walk away with a small fortune in prize money. But most of them are there to join the White Swords. And they all want it. They all want it badly.

Barristan, who stands at the side of the royal podium, seems to be cataloguing every one of them - following every thrust, kick, tilt and clash. Sansa wonders if he is reminded of his first tourney, as she is of hers - the difference being that at eleven Sansa had been a spectator. At ten, Barristan had been the mystery knight. That was where he earned his moniker, the Bold, given to him by a Targaryen prince that never became king. It still was true all these years later, when the knight had seen the deaths of two kings, the fall of the Targaryen dynasty, the madness of Aerys and the madness of Rhaegar - different, yes, but still madness.

Sansa wonders if he has become adept at spotting it, after all this time. The madness. She wonders if he can sense the intensity of the looks that Jaime is sending her way, the smouldering anger and want and helplessness. Probably not, she thinks. He hadn’t sensed it in over a decade in the other world, the one that Sansa remembers less and less of as the weeks pass - everything before the Others, at least. There was no way she could ever forget them. The cold blue eyes, the burning touch of that infinite cold, Jon’s back disappearing into the barren landscape, never to be seen again-

She shivers, and Robert is momentarily distracted from the joust. “Are you cold, my lady?” he asks, frowning in concern. That is what is worst of all. That he still looks at her like he did before, still touches her hand and kisses her forehead, but he doesn’t come at night anymore. No, now he is entertained by the whores of Chataya’s, at least until Pycelle clears her for nightly activities. The maids whisper that the king is not satisfied with waiting for her to get better, and they are right. Robert was not a man built for patience. To her relief, neither Lysa or Arryn have addressed the matter with her - although if Arryn did want to, it would come from Lysa. Sansa can barely bear to be in the same room as the old man, although she doesn’t quite know what it is about him that she finds so viscerally repugnant. 

Sansa wants so badly to ask Robert to stop. To ask him to wait. To content himself with his own hand, or her hands, or her mouth. Anything to get this painful tattoo to stop twinging her her chest whenever another night passes and he does not come. But she cannot risk it. She cannot risk his anger, his tearing down of all her plans. And in the daytime, in the daytime, nothing is changed. He only grows more affectionate, more admiring, and that is worst of all. She cannot hate him, no matter how much she wants to. He trusts her more and more - she is officially his stand in at the small council meetings, although Jon Arryn still has the final word. 

Varys had come to her, just the once, and asked her if she wanted him to make the women he slept with disappear, before he could grow too attached. She says no. He was expecting it - if he thought she would accept, he wouldn’t have made the offer. That is the only explanation she can come up with for why the old Cersei hadn’t been made the same offer, because if she had, she would have crowed about it from the rooftops.

But Sansa is not Cersei. Sansa is not Cersei. That is what she had vowed, right at the beginning of this mess. Sometimes, it is hard to remember, even with her darling Edda and her eyes. It is hard when Tyrion calls her sister, when Tywin calls her daughter, when Jaime calls her beloved, when Briony calls her Cersei. Briony is still the only one who calls her Cersei, who uses her name, and it is not even her name. She is in an even more uncomfortable guise than that of Alayne Stone. She is Sansa Stark, and she doesn’t care about Robert’s whores, or Jaime’s heart. She shouldn’t. That is Cersei. And Cersei, for better or for worse- oh, who is she kidding, for better, _always_ for better, is gone. Only Sansa remains. Only Sansa. 

“Are you cold?” Robert repeats, and Sansa doesn’t laugh in his face. He doesn’t know cold. Neither does this body.

“No, dearest,” she says with a smile, “I’m perfectly fine.”

But she’s not. She’s not. She’s not Cersei Lannister, but that is what the world knows her as. That is what her daughter, her darling, will know her as. That is what Jon will know her as, if they ever meet in this universe, that is what every soul she saves will know her as, even if they don’t know that she is the one that saves her. And that is what Jaime - Jaime, who is sitting next to a pretty, dark blonde girl, the one that Tywin wants him to marry, Jaime who keeps on looking back at her, Jaime whose love she should never have underestimated, even if she never understood it - that is who Jaime thinks she is.

A loud clang of metal makes her eyes focus again on the joust. The smaller man has fallen from his saddle, and the victor rides up and down, up and down, hero of the moment. He has no roses, not like Loras Tyrell, and his face is hidden by a visor. He is this years mystery knight, and despite herself, Sansa is curious - rather, she has her suspicions, that she wants and does not want to be proved correct. A thousand years ago, she know a man who could ride like that, fight like that, bellow like that.

But Sandor Clegane did not know her, and now he never would. His brother was dead, his father still alive - he had no reason to come to court. But still… Sansa could hope.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mystery knight was of a height with Ser Brynden, and although Sansa knew the Hound towered over many men full grown, right now he was twelve or so. He killed his first man at twelve, she suddenly remembers. She wonders if that moment has already come to pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I've had a shit day. I had a blood test, but my blood wouldn't come out, so I was stabbed twice for no reason :( How are you all doing?

In the end, the mystery knight was knocked out in the semi-finals. Sansa found herself being swept up in the atmosphere of excitement and anticipation. Ser Brynden Tully helped him to his feet, and Sansa noted the red and blue token around his wrist as a ribbon that Lysa usually wore in her hair. Ser Brynden, the more she thought about it, would be a perfect candidate for the kingsguard - loyal to the Starks and Tullys and thus, the crown, unmarried and already legendary. He and Ser Barristan had fought side by side in the war of the Ninepenny kings, and the lone white sword had nothing but praise for the man. 

The mystery knight was of a height with Ser Brynden, and although Sansa knew the Hound towered over many men full grown, right now he was twelve or so. He killed his first man at twelve, she suddenly remembers. She wonders if that moment has already come to pass.  Robert beckons both of the riders to him, roaring his approval with the crowds at the frankly magnificent tilt. They had broken four lances before Ser Brynden knocked Sand- the mystery knight into the dirt.

“A wonderful showing!” her husband roars, leaning out of the royal box to grasp Ser Brynden’s arm, “Your reputation told true of your skill, ser. I think your chances are strong, strong indeed for the final.”  _ And the kingsguard  _ went unsaid, but everyone heard it.

Graciously, Ser Brynden nods his head in acknowledgement to the king, who is young enough to be his own son. “Your words touch me, highness. I shall do my best to live up to your expectations.”

No sooner had Ser Brynden finished talking did Robert turn to the mystery knight, whose helm was still firmly in place. “You too excelled, ser,” he adds boisterously, “I’ve been wracking my brains for who you could be, and find myself coming up empty. Pray ser, let us see your face and give you your due.”

The mystery knight makes no move for his helmet. “I am afraid, your grace,” a young voice comes from the helm, one that leaves no doubt that this is a boy not a man, despite the size of him, “that I wish to remain anonymous. Else I lose the element of surprise for the melee.”  _ And maybe,  _ Sansa thinks _ , you don’t want people to stare at your burns.  _ For all that she knew Sandor Clegane, honest and harsh and hard, she knew that even as a fully grown man, the crown prince’s sworn sword, he was sensitive about his disfigurement. As a boy… it must have been so much worse. Children were cruel, after all. She had been.

“Taking part in the melee too?” Robert turned back to her with a grin, “We have a real contender on our hands, my sweet!”

Sansa takes the chance, and stands, knowing that it wasn’t seemly for her to leaning forward over the railing as Robert did. Nobody would chastise the king. She walks to the side of the elevated platform, and is barely above the height of the two men below. “You both fought wonderfully,” she praises the men, and Ser Brynden bows his head in thanks. The mystery knight turns his head a little to look at the elder man, and quickly copies him. It’s far more endearing than Sansa was expecting it to be. “Ser Brynden, I see you have the favour of the hand’s own wife, but I notice that you, ser,” she addresses the mystery knight, “wear no lady’s favour.”

Although she cannot see his face, Sansa would bet a gold dragon that he is blushing. 

“I have no woman to favour me, your grace,” the voice tells her, “I get on well enough by myself. I always have.”

_ Yes,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ yes you have. But what is one more change? What is one more scared little boy? _

“Still,” Sansa says, and looks at Robert with a flick of her eyes. He catches onto her plan after a moment, and waves his hand in acceptance. The story may have been different if the mystery knight’s voice had cracked, but he clearly feels no threat from a young lad. She thinks back to the kiss he gave her, at the Battle of the Blackwater, her very first, and wonders if he is wrong to be unconcerned. “Every knight should have a lady’s favour, especially one competing in the melee where the fighting is fierce.” She has a ribbon already on her wrist, for just such an occasion in case there was anyone she needed to honour quickly, or if Robert went against all advice and decided to compete in a competition for his own protection. With him apparently satisfied to spectate, and no other competitor of great importance unspoken for, Sansa felt confident letting the silken thread of gold and red off her wrist, and holding it forward for him.

For a moment, the mystery knight just stares at her outstretched hand, before Ser Brynden accidently stamps on the boy’s foot, spurring him into motion. “Your grace… I don’t know what to say.”

“ _ Thank you _ would suffice,” Ser Brynden hisses out the side of his mouth, both Sansa and Robert acting as if they hadn’t heard anything.

“I understand,” Sansa says before the boy dies of embarrassment, “you wish to let your sword do the talking.”

A jerky nod through the helm. “I- uh- yes. Yes, your grace. I’ll- I’ll do you proud.”

“I have every faith,” Sansa says as she inclines her head, before turning around to perch back on her throne. And she does. She knows Sandor Clegane. Knows he can fight off rapists and kings alike, and do so without breaking a sweat. Knows that the only thing to make him fall apart is fire, fire and a brother she has already disposed of. Thoros of Myr and his flaming sword have not entered the tourney, have possibly not even entered Westeros yet. 

Ser Brynden ends up half dragging the mystery knight away, and Robert settles back into his chair beside her. “I think the boy may have already lost his head,” he quips, “one look from his queen and he was a wreck.”

“He’ll do well,” she counters simply, “I know it.”


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At her side, Robert yells as the first clash of steel rings through the air, and Sansa’s head jerks up as she realises that the melee had begun without her knowing. It is a mess of swords and blood and maces and horses, and the action is halfway done before Sansa manages to find the mystery knight on the field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, I think, the longest chapter of this story yet, but I had to get it all in.

By the next morning, the kingsguard had been bolstered from having only one remaining white sword, to having four. The honour went to the victor of the joust, as well as the runner up and the third victor. Ser Richard Horpe had bested Ser Brynden in the joust, but it had taken nine lances, and almost half a day. But the pocked man, whose face Sansa thinks she had seen at the Wall in passing, is the embodiment of pride - the white cloak, as it settles around his shoulders, seems to fit him like a second skin. Next is, unsurprisingly, the Blackfish, who kneels with the air of a man who had achieved a great victory. He grins as he stands, and his Tully blue eyes catch on Ser Barristan’s as he rises.

The final addition was, Sansa admits, a surprise to her. Ser Lyn Corbray, a man she knew uncomfortably well from her time in the Vale, had thrown his hat into the ring at the last moment; she couldn’t say she was pleased at his appointment, although she knew that he was better than the former Kingsguard Robert had employed. His victory at the Trident was fresh, and Lady Forlorn hung at his side as he took his vows.  _ He likes little boys _ , she remembers suddenly,  _ they were the price he could be bought for _ . She would have to keep a keen eye on him.

For now, however, the knight seemed very happy basking in the reflected glow of the king and his new white cloak. This way, she comforts herself, he will not enter Littlefinger’s service in pursuit of his brother’s lands. Even if she will almost certainly be stuck with him guarding her some days.

Either way, Robert is happy with his new protectors, and he makes sure to say as much as the royal party makes its way back down to the tourney grounds, where the melee is set to begin. Sansa, after a full day yesterday of excruciating boredom in between the quick, violent excitements of the tilts, elects to bring Edda with her in the morn, instead of having her brought out a couple of hours after noon. For her part, the little princess thrives on the attention of the crowds - she is passed hand to hand through the ranks of both the Lannisters and Baratheons, and the kingsguard are also given permission - only Ser Brynden, however, takes them up on the offer. He speaks in a low, soft voice that has Sansa’s daughter entranced with his words. She supposes he has practice with small children, for all that he had never become a father himself.

“A healthier babe I have never seen,” Ser Brynden tells her, as he hands the babe back, “I imagine she’ll have plenty of suitors when she flowers.”

Beside her, Robert rolls his eyes with impatience. “When she  _ flowers _ ? There’s been enough bloody interest in her before she’s six moons old!” Sansa’s stomach rolls at the reminder. Letters had flooded in, from the Reach, the Vale, the Stormlands, the Westerlands, the Riverlands - all asking for consideration for their sons and heirs and grandsons for Edda’s hand. They were like vultures, pouncing at any way into royal favour.

_ Not my daughter,  _ Sansa had promised herself, and had made Robert promise too.  _ My daughter will never be promised to a stranger that sees only a title. _

That, at the very least, she and Jon Arryn agree on wholeheartedly. Lysa, their main source of communication - not that she knows it - natters on about how her husband agreed that it was too soon to make any promises regarding Edda. Sansa has the feeling that he said so because of political reasons, not personal, but she’ll take his support in this matter.

She is distracted from her musings as Renly - now a much healthier weight and colour - pokes his finger at his niece, and gasps joyfully as her tiny fingers close around the digit. “Look, Stannis!” he cries, “She knows me!”

Her good brother nods at his brother’s words, “So she does,” he says drily, his tone betraying he thinks she does nothing of the sort. 

“Why Stannis,” Sansa teases, “no need to be jealous. We know that you are Edda’s favourite uncle, truly.” Stannis blanches white, and she can’t hold in her laugh. Whenever he has held her, no matter how hard he tries, he always looks at Edda as if afraid that he will break her, and her daughter picks up on his unease - it usually takes less for a minute for Edda to fuss in Stannis’ arms. 

“I never claimed to be good with children,” Stannis mutters, a little put out at the reminder.

“You just need to relax with her,” Sansa comforts him, “and it is better you learn now. What will you do when you have babes of your own, and you are afraid of them?”

Stannis grinds his teeth. “I am not  _ afraid  _ of babes,” he denies hotly, “but of _harming_ them.”

Sansa’s small slips off her face as a memory flickers into her mind. Stannis, holding Shireen in his arms when she fell asleep in the Castle Black library. Stannis, demanding that should he perish, his daughter is to take the iron throne. Stannis, showing more affection to Shireen on that last day than he had ever done in public before - he had kissed her grayscale blighted cheek, stroking her fine black hair. He had never come back, and Shireen had wept, wept for days. And then, in the middle of the night, Sansa had awoken to chanting, and screaming, and smoke-

She manages to paste on a sickly smile before turning back to Edda, and breathing in the smell of her soft skin. At her side, Robert yells as the first clash of steel rings through the air, and Sansa’s head jerks up as she realises that the melee had begun without her knowing. It is a mess of swords and blood and maces and horses, and the action is halfway done before Sansa manages to find the mystery knight on the field. 

He is not as strong as she remembers, although that was to be expected, considering his age - but he is quick, quicker than the men who have been thrown from their mounts, who have been forced to limp off the field in defeat. It is his speed that is keeping him in the games, she realises, as he darts away from stronger competitors, his horse finely trained. It is not Stranger, she realises after a moment. She wonders if this is one of Stranger’s predecessors. 

Either way, the horse is as good as evasion as it’s master. He is, in the end, the last man on his horse, all the other competitors forced off their mounts by necessity or wound. He evidently decides this makes him too much of a target, and slides off the back of the beast with one, fluid movement. Immediately, a heavyset knight with the green apple Fossoway crest on his shield charges him, and he ducks, once, twice, thrice - in anger, the larger man lunges forward, and leaves his left side open. The boy sees, and immediately takes advantage - the older man is in the dust in an instant, well and truly out of the proceedings. Something gold on his wrist glints in the sunshine.

There are four combatants remaining. “Your lad is doing well,” Robert says to her cheerily, “but he won’t get any further. Look at the size of the rest of them!”

But Sansa has faith. “Don’t count him out,” she says back, her mouth dry as he circles around a knight with white winged helm. This one… this one is more skilled than the Fossoway, and more cautious. The other battle going on is between a knight with three trees on a field of yellow, and another with three bronze spear heads. The two fights grow closer, and closer, and closer, until-

The winged knight is forced to duck from a wide swing from the arrowhead knight, the tree knight takes the opportunity to lunge at the arrowhead knight, from behind Sandor brings the flat of his blade down on the spearhead knight’s helm as he dances away from the winged knight’s range-

The man falls to the ground in a heap. All three of them had brought him down in a flash, and they look at one another for a long beat, before falling back into defensive positions. Their dance carries them away from the sprawled body, and squires hurry to the downed man to roll him onto a stretcher. Robert lets out a long, low whistle of appreciation. “Right you are,” he says in a quiet voice, so that only she could hear, “they planned that. Sneaky bastards, all three of them.”

She looks at him in askance. “He was the strongest competitor,” Robert elaborates, “older and stronger. They must have had some kind of agreement, to take him out.”

Sansa swallows. She hadn’t thought of that, but now she thinks back, back to how the spear head knight had been one of the first off his horse, had had no respite, had been getting slower and slower, tireder and tireder-

“I wonder what he did,” she says to him, “to inspire such unity in a free-for-all when it is every man for himself.” Robert shrugs, eyes fixed on the field. In the end, the mystery knight tries to pull away from the pack, but the other two follow him. The screaming of the crowd is reaching a crescendo, and he performs a feint, it must have been a feint, toward the oak knight, but the winged knight catches him from the side, and slams him against the side of the arena. 

He groans, but he doesn’t rise. He knows, Sansa realises, he knows he made it to the top three. He knows he has done enough. 

The duel between the two remaining knights is nothing short of spectacular. Sansa can barely follow every thrust, every swipe and feint and clash, and Robert is shouting, is on his feet, and so is Renly and Tyrion and Jaime, and Stannis is leaning forward, unblinking, and the smallfolk’s voices rise, rise-

The knight of the three trees loses his sword to the mud, and finds a blade at his throat. “Yield!” he cries after a long moment, and the arena erupts. The victor sheathes his sword, and gives him a hand up. The mystery knight too manages to stagger to his feet, although he wobbles for a moment when he first stands. “Ser Balon Swann,” announces the herald, walking into the arena to take the hand of the victor and pull it high into the air, “has won the melee!”

Everything’s a bit of a blur, then. She hands Edda over to Briony, who had started to wail at the deafening noise. Balon Swann removes his helm - he has stringy brown hair, a plain face, and bright eyes as the crowds cheer his name. Next to him, the knight of trees also removes his helm - he is handsomer than the victor, and panting with exertion, but there is an exhausted smile on his lips.

Finally, finally, the three approach the royal box. Robert stands, shakes each of their hands, and asks completely unsubtly if they would be opposed to joining him in a private audience in the afternoon. All three agree, unsurprisingly. 

“Well done,” she says to the mystery knight, who straightens under her praise. “I knew you were one to watch.”

“Your grace, I cannot thank you enough-”

“Oh yes you can!” Robert booms as he reaches the still masked boy, “Tell us your name, show us your face! I am dying of curiosity.”

A beat, and the mystery knight nods. He reaches up for his helm, and Sansa’s heart - Cersei’s heart - is thumping, thumping in her ears like a drum. She sees dark hair, a pointed chin, thin lips, a cheek- she blinks. 

She does not see the face of Sandor Clegane.

Something inside her stomach swoops as the rest of the boy’s face is revealed. The skin is unblemished by burns, unscarred. His hair is stringy and sticks his forehead, which is beaded with sweat. His nose is narrow, his cheekbones high, his eyebrows pointed- he looks, for lack of a better word, _weaselly_.

Sansa has never seen this man before, but she knows his name, his family, before he even says it.

“Perwyn Frey,” the boy bows low, his voice high enough for her to know it has not broken yet. “I am honoured, your grace. Your grace.”

There is an emotion shining in his eyes as he looks at her - gratitude, devotion, awe. All the ways she had hoped Sandor would look at her when he saw that she had supported him, had supported him when he had been alone and unvalued-

Sansa has to swallow down an acrid mouthful of her own vomit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... the mystery knight is not quite who Sansa thought it was. Thoughts on my choice?


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your Grace,” Briony says in a tentative voice that makes Sansa think she is about to say something that she won’t like, “although the boy is young… he did prove himself. He seems like a good lad to me. He could learn.”
> 
> _You don’t know,_ Sansa wants to scream, _you don’t know what the Freys are. Nobody does. Nobody knows what they’ll do. Nobody but me._

“What about the other man?” she says in a low voice to Briony as she quickly makes her way back to the Maidenvault to do damage control. “The one with the spear heads? Could he take Frey’s place?”

“Ser Mandon Moore,” Briony recites from memory, “a Valeman. He was part of Jon Arryn’s party, and I think that Arryn actually encouraged him to enter the tourney-”

“No,” she says immediately, “not him. I won’t have another of Arryn’s sycophants in the keep if I can help it.”

“Your Grace,” Briony says in a tentative voice that makes Sansa think she is about to say something that she won’t like, “although the boy is young… he did prove himself. He seems like a good lad to me. He could learn.”

_You don’t know,_ Sansa wants to scream, _you don’t know what the Freys are. Nobody does. Nobody knows what they’ll do. Nobody but me._

“Hmm,” she makes a short, ambivalent noise in the back of her throat. There is a pulsing at the back of her head that is warning of a headache coming soon. She isn’t surprised. She had been stupid, stupid to give her patronage to a mystery knight - the chances it was Sandor were small, but she had been so _sure…_

The cost of her weakness was that tomorrow Robert was due to put a white cloak on a Frey. And she had no idea how to stop it, how to explain it, especially when she gave him her own damned favour.

“I know he’s young,” Briony says, “but he did come third, your Grace, and that’s not an easy task. And we know he isn’t an Arryn man - I truly believe he could be yours if you continue your patronage-”

Hadn’t those been her own thoughts as she courted Lysa? Lysa, who had never been an Arryn, not really, but had only ever been on her own side. Sansa is on her own side too, and the power struggle growing between herself and the hand of the king is growing obvious to even the more oblivious members of court. Robert, at least, is blissfully ignorant of the battle going on around him between his own wife and almost-father. Lysa had been a selfish, cruel, vicious woman who had nearly killed her because of her jealousy over Littlefinger, of all people. But hadn’t she used her too? Didn’t she have tea with her every other day, talking about inane things whilst stealing the hand’s secrets out of his lady wife without her knowledge. and turning her into a better, more useful pawn?

_He could be yours._ That is what Robb thought once as well. He had promised himself and Arya to Freys, and then broken his word. He had married because he lost himself in his sorrow for Bran and Rickon, buried his sorrows in Jeyne Westerling’s embrace. And he had thought it again, when he offered up Edmure in exchange - _he can still be mine_ , he will have thought, _him and all his men,_ even as Late Lord Walder was sharpening his swords.

Oh, no marriage has been promised, no vows made, but it is only a matter of time. She has less than a day. Less than a day before Perwyn Frey says the words of the kingsguard, and rises up. Less than a day to understand, to change things, to figure out whether it is a risk she can take. If she even can change anything this late into the game, when her own favour is still wrapped around the boy’s wrist. Robert’s mind is set - she had tried to say she hadn’t realised he was so young, that he wasn’t ready, but he’d laughed her off, said the same things Briony had been saying - he can learn.

What it comes down to, Sansa thinks as she waves the guards outside the maidenvault away and enters her chambers, is that she doesn’t want to risk him learning wrong. The boy is young - three and ten, painfully eager. How much has he learned on his father’s knee? How much does he know of backstabbing, betraying and breaking guest right? For all that the Freys had, arguably, been provoked, you could not convince any true family to betray en masse as the Freys had unless there was already something rotten at the core.

If she had just met Perwyn Frey, if she didn’t know what she knew, if she wasn’t going to be forced to entrust her daughter to him, she would have said he seemed a harmless sort. He had entered as a mystery knight because he was not yet a _ser_ \- something Robert insisted could be taken care of at the kingsguard, being knighted and honoured with a place with the white swords on one day was easy enough for a king - and his elder brothers had been knocked out early. _I wanted to make my family proud,_ he had told them earnestly, _but I knew they’d stop me if they knew. I wanted… I wanted my father to notice me._

Perwyn is Walder’s fifteenth son - when she was Sansa Stark, she hadn’t truly appreciated just how difficult it would be, growing up in the packed Twins, where to stand out was nigh on impossible. Sansa understands now, but that doesn’t mean that she wants Perwyn Frey on the kingsguard.

“I’ll sleep on it,” she says finally, allowing Briony to unlace her gown, eyes growing heavy. “There has to be a way to fix this.”

The next morning, Sansa wakes up to the birds tweeting in the trees, and Briony’s warm body beside her. She exits the bed as quietly as she can, creeping over to the window. The sky is clear and blue, the trees lush and green. She revels in the beauty of it for a moment. The war for the dawn, the Others - it all feels like it is a million years away at a moment like this. But it is not, she reminds herself. She has fifteen years, or thereabouts. Fifteen years to save Westeros, to save her family, to save - and she grimaces at the thought - to even save the Freys.

Like Lysa before him, Perwyn Frey has committed no crime against her. Not yet. And it was, she thinks cautiously, possible that not all the Freys were involved in the Red Wedding. She knew that Roslin had wept all through her nuptials, knowing what was coming - perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps he is young enough yet for her to mould him, to recreate him in the image of a better man. Perhaps she could have him shadow Ser Barristan, the most seasoned and honourable member of the distinguished order.

Perhaps she is just grasping at straws, because she is out of time, and has no solution. Robert will name the rest of his kingsguard today, and for better or for worse, Perwyn Frey will be a sworn brother by the time the sun - the sun that is just now rising, shy and blushing - has set.

“I’ll make it work,” Sansa says to herself, to try and reassure herself, more than anything. It is still strange to speak with Cersei’s voice. Almost as if somebody else entirely is bolstering her forward. But it is just her, it will always be just her - this is her burden, and hers alone. Not even Cersei, for all that Sansa is using her face and her husband and her family to advance her own ends, is here with her now. _Cersei would just have him killed_ , she thinks, and for a moment, she longs for the simplicity. Just to cut a string off before it could become a danger. But then, she would be no better than Cersei, and left with loose end after loose end that she could never quite get rid of. And she will never, never be Cersei, no matter how many people mistake them for the same person.


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ”I… my lady… I have spoken to Pycelle. He believes, well, he believes that you are recovered fully from Edda’s birth.”
> 
> The change in conversation almost sends Sansa reeling. Why had Pycelle not told her? Unless… unless Robert had gone himself to Pycelle. Had put the Grandmaester on the spot. Maybe, she thinks, maybe he has missed me. Maybe his whores do not fill the hole inside him as well as I can. She banishes the vain thoughts as best she can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Robert gets his head out of his arse. Finally.

Before she can so much as blink, the deed is done. Ser Arys Oakheart, Ser Balon Swann, and the newly knighted Ser Perwyn Frey are the newest members of the Kingsguard. Swann had been the only one, aside from Ser Barristan, who had worn a white cloak in the old world, replacing Ser Mandon (who in this world had slunk back to the Vale without a cloak, thank the gods) after the battle of the Blackwater. Balon Swann had refused to hit her, at first anyway. He had been the only one to question Joffrey’s orders, even if he did give in in the end. It took a certain strength of character to question a king so mad on power. Sandor, of course, had never laid a hand on her, but Joffrey had never asked him to. 

Sandor. She had so hoped that she would see him again, help him. She had gotten herself into this whole mess because she had been weak, and had wanted a familiar face by her side. Perwyn seems, she has to admit, like a good lad, and for all that he’s officially a knight in his own right, he seems to be shadowing Ser Barristan and Ser Brynden, hero worship in his eyes.

“The boy is young, yes,” Robert said as the three new white swords trooped out of the room, beaming, “but you were right to favour him.”

_ No,  _ Sansa wants to say,  _ I was wrong.  _ But she promised herself she’d give him a chance, so she nods. “I knew many a brave young lad at the Rock,” she tells her husband, thinking of Jon and his friends at the Wall, so young and so brave, and so dead. Grenn, Pyp, Satin. The realm had thrown them away to an icy hell, and they had become better and stronger for it. “He reminded me of them,” she lies.

Jon, and Robb for that matter, would both be over a year old now. She looked down at Edda, slumbering in her arms, and wondered if her daughter would one day meet and love them both as her mother once had. Her own daughter was born before her mother. The logistics of it all made her head swim.

Robert has gone suddenly silent beside her. She turns to him, and his gaze is fixed far away in the distance. “Your grace?” she asks, and he snaps out of the trance, giving her a wan smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Was lost in thought,” he mutters, and holds out his arms for Edda. Their daughter doesn’t stir as Sansa hands her over, and Robert looks at her face as if searching for something. “I’m glad she has my look,” he says at last, “she reminds me of my mother.”

“With any luck,” Sansa says to that, all too aware what fate Cassana Baratheon fell to, “she will grow up as beautiful as her grandmother.”

“Aye,” Robert says, swallowing. For a moment, so quickly Sansa can’t be sure that her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her, something that looks a lot like wetness shines in Robert’s eyes. He blinks, and the glint is gone.”I… my lady… I have spoken to Pycelle. He believes, well, he believes that you are recovered fully from Edda’s birth.”

The change in conversation almost sends Sansa reeling. Why had Pycelle not told her? Unless… unless Robert had gone himself to Pycelle. Had put the Grandmaester on the spot. _Maybe_ , she thinks, _maybe he has missed me. Maybe his whores do not fill the hole inside him as well as I can_. She banishes the vain thoughts as best she can.

“Oh,” she says in reply, “I… this is wonderful news, my lord.”

Robert smiles again. It does not reach his eyes, again. It is strange; before now, she has never seen him fake a smile, let alone two so close together. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong, and she has no idea what. She berates herself; it is her job to know. “Would you, be averse? Should I visit you tonight?”

“No,” she says quickly, and she internally scolds herself for sounding too eager. She has missed her husband, for all that he has been with her every day. She has missed the way he held her, the smell of leather on his skin. “Not at all.”

A real smile greets her then. “Good,” he says brusquely, “I have…”

_ Say it, _ she wants to cry,  _ say you’ve missed me. Say you love me. Say it, and I will say it back.  _

But he seems to lose his nerve at the last minute. “I’ll see you tonight,” he says instead of finishing his sentence. Then he turns on his heel, and leaves the room, leaving her with Ser Brynden and Briony.

Her maid squeezes her shoulder, and she sends her a grateful smile in return. “We must prepare,” she murmurs to her lady, all too aware that Ser Brynden does not know, or want to know, exactly what she means, “we must prepare at once.”


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa knows that her and Briony’s efforts were not in vain when Robert enters her bedchamber that night, and his mouth drops open at the sight of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a bit of a gap in updating, which I completely blame on me trying to write a fem!Harry Potter soulmate series. The first one was 4000 words. The second one is 30000 words and counting. Kill me now. On a positive note, I won Nanowrimo! 
> 
> Apologies if Sansa's orgasm in this is written incorrectly, but I haven't actually experienced one myself, so I just went off of the many, _many_ smut fics I have read in my time. Hope you all like it! This chapter is basically softcore porn with a little plot.

Sansa knows that her and Briony’s efforts were not in vain when Robert enters her bedchamber that night, and his mouth drops open at the sight of her. First had been the waxing - beeswax to thin out Cersei’s mound and legs. To dull that pain, immediately after came a bath in rose water. Then, Briony had used coconut milk and honey to make a paste that rejuvenated her skin, and disguised the stretch marks that Edda had left on her belly and hips. 

Kohl on her eyes, red dye sparingly squeezed onto her lips to give them a deeper hue. Her hair, which now hangs to her lower back, had been painstakingly plaited and then coated with oil, before being unwoven a few hours later, giving it a gentle wave that rose and fell all the way down. Rouge was used lightly on her cheeks, and Sansa had gritted her teeth as Briony had helped her into a creamy corset, only a couple of shades darker than her skintone, tighter than what she was used to - in pregnancy, she had forgone corsets, but now her respite was done. 

Done until the next babe, at least. 

Robert is still gaping at her, and she languidly sits up on the featherbed, every inch of her gleaming in the light.  _ Not all that glitters is gold,  _ she cannot help but think as the king slowly regains power over his body, but his eyes still cannot seem to leave her body. “Robert,” she says with a smile, and beckons him over, “I’ve missed you.”

“Gods be good,” he says roughly, before halfway launching himself across the room, tangling his fingers in her hair. Their faces are so close that she can feel his breath on her cheek - he has not been drinking, she can tell, and that pleases her immensely. She wants him aware, she wants him to remember her like this, more goddess than woman every time he thinks about resuming his whoring. “I am the luckiest man in the Seven Kingdoms to call you my wife.”

Sansa closes the gap before them, and places her lips on his. His hands pull her to him as he deepens the kiss, and her barely contained breasts swell against his chest. On instinct, she lets her hands wind around his shoulders, and digs her nails into the soft fabric of his shirt, and the skin beneath. He growls, something primal coursing through him, and in less than a moment his hands are gone from her hair, and have instead found their way to her arse, and he lifts her clean off the floor. Her legs wind around his strong frame without a thought, and the kiss does not break until he has all but thrown her onto the bed, ripping off his nightshirt with a single minded intensity. 

The months of separation mean that Sansa isn’t entirely prepared for his girth - her breath catches, but the sensation of pain almost immediately dissipates as he falls back into a rhythm that they had before Sansa had become too round with child to continue, and Sansa shocks herself as she moans.

“Cersei,” Robert groans, not taking his eyes off of her as he moves atop of her, and Sansa feels her hips beginning to move in tandem with his, “oh, I have missed you, my queen. I thought for sure I would go mad.”

Sansa cannot find her voice, and instead nods, before this time initiating a searing kiss between the two of them. Robert does not still, but his hips roll a little gentler, and Sansa cannot help the feeling - as cliche as it may be - that they were made to fit together. “Never leave me again,” she pants, and he shudders as the walls of her body tighten against him.

“Never,” he agrees, before attaching his mouth to her neck and sucking. Sansa feels her toes curl, and her whole body flexes without her permission. 

“Robert,” she cries, “Robert, Robert-” She doesn’t know what she wants to say, stop, carry on, harder. Something is building inside her, twisting and pulsing and squeezing, and she can’t control it, can’t control herself, and it terrifies her. Sansa has always been in control, has never accepted anything less ever since she learned exactly what happened to pawns in the great game. 

“Almost there,” he says huskily in her ear, “almost there, love.”

_ Almost where?  _ She wants to ask, but suddenly, she knows. The only way she can describe it is as a chain reaction, a fuse being lit inside her and exploding. Her entire body shakes with the force of the explosion inside of her, and her head falls back against the pillow as she shrieks. She feels like she has suddenly become too large for Cersei’s skin, feels like she will burst, burst if it does not stop soon, but the waves of pleasure keep on coming, so strong that they bring tears to her eyes.

Above her, the top of her bed wavers, as if there is an earthquake ripping through the room, and Robert’s piercing eyes go dark with satisfaction. “There you go,” he says, suddenly gentle, and she feels the comparatively familiar flood of his release inside her, “Cersei,” he whispers to her, nipping at the shell of her ear, “ _ Cersei.” _

Slowly, slowly, Sansa comes back to herself. Her body is still tingling, filled with this strange energy that she doesn’t recognise. Her eyes suddenly feel very heavy. “Robert, I…”

“I love you,” Robert finishes her sentence, “I love you. I’ve missed you, dearest.”

“If you love me,” she manages as her husband rolls of her, his hot skin making her feel like his touch must be branding her, “stay.”

“Always,” he promises, and kisses her forehead. It is not the action of the man she had imagined he was; it is gentle, and soft, and it means something that she doesn’t dare address just yet. “You must know Cersei - I never wanted to be with anyone else. But a man has needs, and I refused to risk your life, my love. I refuse.”

“I would rather die,” Sansa says to him, wavering on telling him the truth, “than know you were loving another.” Is it true? She can’t be entirely sure. Once, she would have said it was just a way to soothe Robert’s ego, to prevent any open relationships or bold mistresses. And without him, she still has a lot to live for - and, she thinks of Edda and Jon and the Long Night, a lot more to die for.

But the image of Robert holding another woman the way he is holding her is one that floods her with pain. She had always been a romantic, even when she was a stupid girl who thought that Joffrey was her true knight. And Robert was not that - he was brutish, and angry, and vulnerable and weak. He was petty and vengeful and lecherous, and god help her, Sansa loved him all the same.

“I love you,” she finished, and Robert grins as he strokes her hair the way she likes it.

“I know,” he replies, a teasing tone in his voice, “I’ve known for a while now.” 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I hope you enjoyed, and please leave kudos and a review!


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